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COPYRIGHT REPOSIt 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



REGINALD C. ROBBINS 




CAMBRIDGE 

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191; 



COPVKIGHT, IQI7, U\ KEGINALD CHAUNCEY KOBBINS 



ALL KIGHTS REbEKVED 



©01.^576016 



A'ju Id ll'fiO 



CONTENTS 



Page 

OCEANICS I 

I-XVI 

POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 19 

I-XXII 

POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 43 

I-XIX 

WORK AND ART 65 

I-XXVI 

THE WORLD AT WAR 93 

I-XVII 
ELEMENTALS 113 

I-XII 

POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 127 

1-XXI 

PROPHETICS , 151 

I-XII 

THE SONNETS 165 

M-LI 



OCEANICS 



OCEANICS 



I 



Beloved, with those who to the sea in ships 
Go down, have we and friends of the spirit twain 
Dwelt; and to element consign'd our souls 
In cargo perilous: adventure sweet! 
The splendors of the morning have been ours 
And the bright noon; or evening gloriously 
Hath left us to the guardianship of stars. 
And clouds over our heads have gone and come 
And mists enshrouding sea or sky; the winds 
Have to our sails lent power and, passing by, 
Whisper'd of farthest spaces. And lithe waves 
Have leapt and flung upon us in wild play. ' 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



II 

The elemental intercourse hath been 
Profound, heart-immanent. As wandering birds 
Have our souls wing'd a widening way within 
What stream of the air, what fluent whim of the sea 
Might moon or sun resolve. And we have been. 
Like birds or verily like our swift ship, 
Supported, saturatingly sustain'd 
From turmoil of the continental years 
By these free hours, these mild and eloquent 
Teachings of calm and storm, the primal dream 
Of whole and firmamental ambience 
Cosmic in agitation as in sleep. 



OCEAN I CS 



III 



'T WERE well, in sooth, that something of the strength 

Of ocean in us be by ocean-wrath, 

A cosmism by the cosmic agitance. 

Aroused to battle as in joyousness 

With bolt of death delirant blindingly 

In the howl and sweep of tempest! For by storm 

Sudden, nigh overwhelming in surprise 

Were we assaulted. Though the billowy blast. 

In equanimity by will sustained, 

But blared in supreme emphasis the truth 

Of sea-spirit in us; soul-alarged from tasks 

Earth-stint in crude cross-purpose among men. 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



IV 



For we are wearied through the days and nights 

With dusts and fiery heats of citied strife; 

Nay, even, with the ceaseless strain, the tax 

Toward food-support in exploitation harsh 

Of the weaklier energies, the vegetant. 

Enforced and spoil'd to yield us livelihead. 

But here of the ocean dwelt we without griefs 

Of man despoiler nor of man self-spoil'd. 

Here dwelt we childly; rigorously assail'd 

(As told) of tempests, warn'd of the spume-thresh'd 

shoals 
Indeed, yet heedless of a doom's distress. 
Adrift in mood harmonic momently. 



OCEANICS 



And song belike unto the song of the sea, 
Response anthemic to the voice of winds 
Was not without wild birth under the sun; 
Some auspice of the best that is in man 
Pervading spaces of the nearer air. 
Ay, whithersoever the sun-stream sped us on, 
The tongue surrounding of an half-uncouth, 
Yet none less meaningful, gale-vigorous voice 
Of gulls in keen vocation — creatures, though 
At spoliation of a flote untill'd, 
Yet tuneful; as within the spirits of us. 
Though men, were melodies evoked thereby. 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 



That therefore, as we stoutly tower'd along 

Breasting the surge, else lazily at poise 

In calm smooth-hyaline entranced lay-by, 

A finer venture of the muted word 

Was daily, hourly dream'd upon the air: 

That in our hearts men's song in ships went down 

Unto the sea and wing'd over its ways; 

That in the splendors of the morning and 

The wonder of bright noon, the brilliant hues 

Of evening and the sparkling sooth of stars 

Were thought-tunes saturate, symphoniously 

With tones prismatic of the ocean-scene. 



OCEAN I CS 



VII 



I WOT not there be any mutual feel 
Betwixt the high-screaming sea-bird and the sea, 
Nor 'twixt the tenor of her shrill tongue and men's 
Attuned entrancement as we yearn therewith 
Any exchange of intercourse. For we 
Are to the white gull what for ocean were 
Her seeming sea-voice — all-misunderstood, 
Untaken still though neighboring. But both 
Might unto us be meaningful; mind's singing 
And the quaint bird-call both within our heed 
Of the mighty sea-scene entering-in and making 
The very wave a felt tone-fundament. 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VIII 



And so the oceanic poetry 

Beneath the breath of the listening spirit leaps 

As no wide sea unaided of the sense 

Intensive of humanity might sing: 

An human song yet ocean-poetry 

Beyond or bird or ocean! For we know 

And feel the ocean-aboriginal, 

The matrix-hood, primordial potency 

Of the molten firmament whereof the land 

Was founded and wherefrom the earths emerged. 

And in the thought we praise the primal things 

With reverence, sense of their progeniture. 



lO 



OCEAN I CS 



IX 



A SENSE unguess'd save to the human word. 

For waves, I ween, 'neath heaven are agitant 

Now mainly as in aeons overgone, 

Regardless, unsuspecting of the truth 

That thwart their breathings, traversing their foams, 

Are keels undream'd then when themselves were 

young; 
And poetry imported from beyond 
All cosmic unctions and all ken of these, 
Interpreting, unsensed of the glaucous spume, 
The universal yearnings. Though the seas 
Lift to subside, we feel the buoyancy 
As of the spirit-onlift everywhile. 



II 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



X 



EvERYWHiLE, everywhither of the truth 

Of unions differential: now no more 

The weltering of an undistinguish'd rout 

Of atoms putative (an any be 

In the world so indistinctive?) but, beyond 

All principle of sea-conglomerance, 

The faith-discernment (if yet seminally 

Ta'en of the wave, just thus) in nobler guise 

Allow'd of the comprehending sympathy. 

The foresights and the memories of growth 

Which float in the keel; which, going down in ships, 

Commit us to the seas not wantonly. 



12 



OCEANICS 



XI 



For, though we cast upon a bosom unmoved 
Of manhood-care the cares of our land-creeds, 
And though the shores receding fade and sink 
From least of guidance, yet with purpose set 
And course determined seek we sanities 
In understanding of the inchoate mood 
And ancient welter. For, whilst none attain 
(Save an by self-denied intention still !) 
Yet all our ways horizonward intend. 
And we are reason'd in a cosmic sort, 
Foresighted in an oceanic kind 
Unlike a land-creed — bournless willfully. 



13 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XII 



Ay, though 't were by the creed-competitive, 

The common-seeking as in rivalry 

Of ends not universal, hence unfit 

For the general partition, that the world 

May sheerly seem to wax in world-support; 

And though the cross-purpose, let us frankly yield. 

Be crude material to soul's industry; 

Yet is our reason inly reasonable, 

The spirit actual, only by the feel 

Of generous furtherance: each aim for each 

Mainly evaluable in the worth 

Of sympathies intuitive therethrough. 



U 



OCEAN I CS 



XIII 



For such the understanding modernly 

Of us who down unto the sea in ships 

Take passage — as the winds and white sea-birds 

Perchance, yea, also as the poet-gods, 

Appreciators in a psychic course 

Of the infinite recession of the cirque. 

The bournlessness of men's horizon-bound. 

We are not aimless as the sea-waves seem. 

But splendid in the intimate resolve 

To be by the sea-waves toss'd and flung at heaven, 

To be by the universal flote enarm'd 

In flux unending, elementalwise. 



15 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XIV 



For thus the insight, thus the power to be 
Afresh the poet of the human aim, 
The singer of the lordHer-defined 
Than merely human, overhumanly 
Orbic-conceived, acceptance of the way 
Made rich in sympathy, in mutual trust 
Furthering the over-ocean of the mind, 
The heart love-rational of thee-and-me; 
And these who lately in our lives are link'd 
To comprehend the deeplier by the dwelling 
With them the while within the world of those 
Who in swift ships to the firmament go down. - 



i6 



OCEAN I CS 



XV 

One sea is in our music whilst we four, 
Four-set to the polar lode, in symphony 
Of divers mutual motives waft along 
The wonder-stream of wave and atmosphere; 
One artist-motive to the weltering of 
Primordial unmeaning. And the concave 
Of the ambient horizon opening wide 
Or rounding close as clouds or sea-mists will, 
Seems resonant, self-utterance of the soul 
Appreciant, creative boundlessly — 
Not aimless, sith intention'd: humanwise 
The sea-bird in the spirit circling high. 



17 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVI 



Ah! unto morning mount we, circling there 
Aloft 'mid roseate-flush'd, engloried fogs 
Prophetic of the sun-burst. And through noon 
Sweep we the flood of the ray-stream breasting large 
The salt-sweet saturation. And with eve 
Sink we perchance, the gilded plume-sheen shent. 
To a brooding eye-upturn'd toward the stars 
That watch and wait. And, with the paling east, 
Aleap from the wanton undulance of sleep 
Phosphoric-dark, aleap we lift descrying 
The signals of the day; and daily praise 
Sun-paramount, with him gyral anew! 



18 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



I 

Again unto the hills we here are come 
With hopes of help and health, we anxious pair. 
Watching the workings of the potency 
Of heavenward heights upon the pallid brow 
And weakling frame of him our heritant ; 
A brow less pallid and a frame more strong 
With every hour of upland-open breath — 
That we, as erst, are happy (and he, our joy) 
Who had been fearful of the fever-stroke 
That fell. And now is every morn more blithe; 
By neighborhood of these ennobling hills 
Ennobled in beneficence to men. 



21 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



II 

For from the mind's beginning have the hills 
Enfranchised our hurnanity and bred. 
Catholic thus in generosity, 
A race beyond all import of their own; 
Have foster'd in a breed they could not ken 
The high hill-quality, the mountain-mood 
Of uplift and of outlook with benign 
All-abnegation in their bravery: 
A boon tremendous, cooling with their crags 
Of undemanding eminence the close 
Of craven, hot desire within the brain 
And making man a strong serenity. 



22 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



III 

Fain were we lowland creatures, save the hills 
So taught almightiness in sacrifice: 
Relinquishment of ancient fiercenesses 
'Mid venomous miasmas sweat-oppress'd 
And as with hates reptiHan instinct; 
Attainment of innocuous far-seeing. 
Fain were we too-insistent, zealous-keen 
Destroying as we might the truth of who 
Run traverse to our crudity. But these 
Omnipotently uninsistent heights 
Rebuke by meek example unaware 
Our infamy of selfishness unseen. — 



23 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



IV 



Again unto the hills as anciently 

The psalmist; as in mine own infanthood 

The generation of my parentage 

Stood, father then and mother unto me 

As I may humbly recollect it now, 

Happy in self-effacement and the sight 

As of incipience of the mountain-mood 

In him their weakling from the fever'd shores 

Of pressured breaths and burnings of the brain! 

I mind me of these mountains in those days 

Working their own wise ways upon us then. 

The help and health and high hill-quality. 



24 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



'T IS sad, the recollection. For they learn'd, 
My father and my mother, learn'd so well 
Of these high monitors (and of themselves 
By spiritual splendor!) how to leave 
The memory of wise beneficence 
In firm self-abnegation whilst they sought 
Mine all-too-lowland instinct to imbue 
With eminence to match the morbid zeal • 
Of one for whom no heaven-establish'd truth 
Were sacred to a question nor the wish 
Of wisdoms other than an own allow'd 
Their benefit of beauty — half in vain! 



25 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 

For I am half but heart-inhuman still. 
Fervid and fever'd with the lust of self 
In too-insistent dogma; and have need 
Of generous acquirement, the grasp, 
Within mine own opinion, of that faith 
And certainty, the personal-sincere 
Inherent to the wisest or the worst 
.Of other men for practice as belief. 
I learn'd not wholly of these hills the way 
Of uninsistent insight, estimate 
/Esthetic in allowance of the truth 
Of other truths and their nobility. 



26 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



VII 

I MEAN not any doctrine that the truth . 

(Being constitute as truth best by belief) 

Bears no distinction of a true-from-false — 

For such were chaos-come, not ordering 

In cosmos of a system spiritual. 

I mean that, as the sense of true and false 

Elaborates in fluxions cumulant. 

Not 'falsity' for other men's beliefs 

But 'other's-truth' best names and best maintains 

For foil of ultimate dogma all the heart 

May feel else meaningful, the metaphor 

And sign, vicariously yet one's own. 



27 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VIII 



For thus the manifold meanings of a world 

(Which, hark ye! speak to the child with faery-tongue 

Of mountain, flower or bird), the moods of men 

(Of hearts not merely mock'd or miming here) 

Have inwardness, a self-sincerity 

Of psychic realism, sacred so. 

In which the grades of true-and-false have each 

A fundament-position, personism 

Outreaching, intropenetrant; each fact, 

Faith-standing. To avow mere false or true 

Rejective and adoptive to a choice 

Were somewhat; but to base in both, were best. 



28 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



IX 

Whereby the very dogma may conclude 

Projectivewise an immanence of earth 

Germane unto achievement and itself 

In inmost operation mould awide 

A world within the working; that the way 

Of truth-belief and labor for the right 

Be mutual-artistry, a plasticism 

Of mode-creation intracommunal; 

And earth be animate and founded fresh 

With every utterance; whilst reverend, 

Old wisdoms recrudescent lead us on 

In sympathy to creeds they ne'er may know. 



29 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



X 



HowBEiT, 1 have labor'd. As a man 

Climbing these huge rock-shouiders or along 

The rugged, upward ridges clambering 

Have I essay'd the spiritual task, 

The lesson of the ages in the hour, 

The reverence for attainment obsolete 

Sith ne'er to be repeated. I have sought 

A method in a felt sublimity 

Through person'd reproduction of the past 

Not as a past but as the thought and tongue 

Poetwise, wonder-thrill'd of ancientry 

While yet mine own along the ways new-hewn. 



30 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



Along the ways new-hewn, in sage respect 

For forest and the primitive therein 

Approven human in the passioning 

Of grave enthusiasms ! I have sought 

And somewhat found the fraught acknowledgment 

/Esthetic and the rapture of sun-song 

Skyward if haply in and through the cry 

Of lowlandhood, self's rude insistencies 

Within and far beneath it. Such a task 

Hath been mine. And the failure half-way shown. 

The falling groundward in the vale from faith, 

Hath been no fault of love's ensample set. 



31 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XII 



So love's ensample set hath led us back, 

Led us with him our heart-hope-heritor, 

To ways of wonder-hewn sublimity. 

The hills whence cometh help. And hope have we 

Not solely in assurance to ourselves 

That earth hath high ideal; but for him 

In wish that deep within the boyhood heart 

A vision of the mild almightiness, 

The unassuming grandeur, enter in 

To plead regeneration, silent-kind 

Assoil the man-acquisitiveness, make 

Our son a splendor art-creatingly. 



32 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



XIII 

For, were the grandeur of the hills in him. 
Their uninsistent fostering of soul. 
Of outlook and of inlook, sympathy 
For sense of faith within the counter-faith 
And sweetness of the creed-antiquity — 
Then were the adolescence saved, by strength 
Of wisdom-admiration, from a scorn 
In misconception by a private truth, 
Uncouthness of insistence passion-warp'd; 
And manhood in him be as on the hills 
The race of man hath been; firm, ay, and bold 
But from all overbearingness restrain'd. 



33 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XIV 



That pride and overbearingness yield place 

(Still with inherent sight-capacity 

To take of the world of men song-substance to him) — 

Yield place, pray we — though needs must they take 

root 
And spring to potence in the first of youth — 
Share space with counsels of a playful whim, 
Babe-hints of artistry prefiguring 
A grandeur in the man-maturity 
Of elemental insight. And so now 
Take we with thankfulness the fancy-tale 
(Reporting falsely what the mountain saith 
Or bird or flower) from the trifler-tongue ! 



34 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



XV 

And fill'd with tongue's beginnings of an art 

Is every day the mouth-romance of him. 

The speech of bird, the deed of bloom and leaf. 

The neighbor-thought of mountain with the snows 

Down-gazing, greeting morningly the day 

Anew begun of their small visitant: 

The friendliness and reasoning in things. 

We welcome truthlessness for such a stage 

As very man in ages of the race 

Outlived, a faery-cycle epochwise; 

With hope that truth will be to him at last 

The plastic of an age-regenesis. 



35 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVI 



. For only he who babbleth sympathy 
Through innocent pretense may, soul-mature, 
Innocuously still project of self 
A cosmos, cast foundations of a world 
Godwise if all within the conscious rule 
Of reverence and mountain-won respect 
Toward weaker or toward wiser each alike 
Its claim of true sincerity and sight. 
The mountain-wisdom bases in our soul 
An universalism, whilst the heart 
From inmost of the maelstrom love-creates 
The truth that is not to the mere mundane. 



36 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



XVII 

And Fancy thus, the finely false report 

Of feelings, intuitions in the tongue 

Of spirits not ourselves (these picture-tales 

Of miracle figmental childishly) 

Develops from beneath the mountain-wing 

The strife-assertion, not for sheerly strife 

And lust of the lowland power but, for dreams 

Intuitive in falsity, therethrough 

Ascribed to others for a living truth 

(All-uncompetitive with selfhood's share 

Because of the self of either heart the same) 

Whilst yet the bird-in-me, yon bloom-of-mine. 



37 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVIII 

Be prosper'd, then, in elemental awe, 

Young fancy-falsifier of the fact ! 

And fable innocent: The bird hath told 

A name and calleth to me as I call; 

And this fair flower hath smiled and nodded on me; 

And yonder hill-snow greets me out of sleep 

To morning momingly ! — Thy parents take 

And these hill-wisdoms haply too would take 

A promise of forbearance in the fib, 

A prophecy of exercise of soul 

Mountainlike as with furtherance of faiths 

In world-hearts as some self-of-poethood. 



38 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



XIX 

A poethood! I marvel mine be weak 
Who fend so fondly in me this, I yearn 
That he should feel and friend in artistry. 
I marvel 1 be weak, who feel behind 
The place, the hour, how high a parentage 
Of abnegation and of generous hope 
To help me upward of the mountain-way — 
Who now am holpen also of the hills 
With him to hope-for and with her to prove 
A presence absolute of world-within- 
My-spirit as of self creatively 
Projective in eternal genesis. 



39 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XX 



O MOUNTAINS, that your aid should be at loss 

(Ah, shame for him who must the fault avow!) 

To lift the spirit unto beauty-truth 

In utter'd artistry, the singing-troth 

Of earth-assurance in a genesis 

Catholic, elemental as your ways 

Of abnegation in almightiness! 

Ah me! that perfect mutuality 

Betwixt me and the partner of mine house 

Should want of spirit-progeny, intense 

By self-won certainty whilst wide and free 

Of the motion and the music cosmical! 



40 



POEMS OF THE UPLANDS 



XXI 

Yet so the song, in solemn abnegation 
Of claim for inspiration in itself, 
Renouncing aim of the founding now, anon, 
A world anew, nathless to him may turn 
In hope of future coming unto voice, 
A song-birth posthumous, vicarious 
(Mountain-like so in inmost essence still) 
From lips of the forest-hymning progeny, . 
The fact-inventor of the faery-years, 
Our child, as once was I the child-in-hope 
Of them who help'd me if but half in vain. 
And thus the song hath splendor in itself. 



41 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XXII 



And thus without too fraught a fever-shame 

Within me, bide we by the tonic power 

Of pine-bluffs and of rock-steep, clambering o'er 

Their ruggedness to take of them an health 

Both in our own new hearts by uplift there 

And through the strength recover'd and the wisdom 

Of him who fables of a faery earth. 

The birds, the blossoms and the upland snows 

Have speech by him and in his speech are born 

Unto the human in us that is child; 

Whilst also is our whole humanity 

Hill-nobled; and for him our hope sublime. 



42 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



I 

Sustain 'd at heart by hearing still of thee 
Thy daily avocations and of him 
The rumor in thy screed of every joy — 
In kind as thou and he (thy love hath writ) 
May without my companionship be glad 
And busied, with unwonted friendships nigh 
Or playmates other than accustom'd toys — 
Sustain'd by knowledge in mine heart of you 
Who are earth's dearest and the day to-come 
Of your sweet home-return, I would not spoil 
Thine hour of holiday by that complaint 
Which lurks a little in my loneliness. 



45 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



II 

Beloved, I will o'er-brave it. But the fact 
Of overt emptiness is wide about: 
Thy chamber empty and the ingle-nook 
Where guardian vestal with perpetual flame 
Hath temper'd to her charge the frosts of earth 
Within the infant-sanctuary. These 
And all the chambers of an home unhearth'd 
Are void. And void of sun or sun-steep'd snow 
Dun lies the outdoor earth in m.ists congeal'd 
A sullenness, unwitting of the hues 
Companionable to our weeks of light 
And love-time. But in hope 1 will be bold. 



46 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



HI 

In waiting will I serve. But what of them 
Whom expectation helps not; overposed 
By all-disaster, in the shocks of death 
Estranged beyond recognizance, for whom 
The home-unhearth'd forever shall abide? 
BelovM, ah! what of them, of thee or me 
In case extreme of vacancy mundane, 
The left-behind upon the void of life 
With outlook undirected nor an hope? 
Yet, as thy screed to-day, might haply gleam 
Our love-remember'd and the unfading fact 
Of mutual faithfulness while life had been. 



47 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



IV 



For, though the days were drear of old, brown earth 

And mists were shrouding of the planet-corse. 

Should somewhat of the memorable truth. 

The beauty of this understanding peace 

To-day, be underlain and soul-transfusing 

With wonder of valuation still the world, 

Because of what had been, which here and now 

Foresees, anticipates and so lives-down 

The epoch otherwise but desolate. 

And so, or quick or dead, we twain have strength 

Of worth somewise eternal ; and a will 

To face the world-fate, being whole therewith. 



48 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



And therefore, though with death, can there befall 

To souls hearth-faithful not the heart-exile. 

For we within possess the seed-of-worth. 

The mutual recognition world-about 

Of thee by me (as my truth else by thee) 

For personable, by a pact unique 

Exhibiting in paradigm to each 

The very type and acme of the good 

Which houseth all, which makes of life, though death 

Environ and be of the stuff thereof, 

A cherishment, an home and native place 

Which heart-in-heart may humanly provide. 



49 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 



An overwealth of hearthship, which the rule 

But sole of insight and the accrediting 

Of spiritual warmth may warranty; 

Where otherwise were dearth, unestimate 

In judgment of fact-nature — which indeed 

Love-cognizance alone may truth-inspire! 

I love thee and shall love and dwell within 

A worth-criterion, an homelihood 

Though thou to thrive the world might ne'er return 

Who else were capable of little wisdom 

Anent an earth though fairy-fine trick'd-out 

And prevalent by every spring-pretence. 



50 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



vn 

Beloved, the bud and blossom of an earth 

Had meant to me how niggardly, far less 

In wealth than this wan mist-time, had I held 

No premonition and no clue to thee 

The fervor of thy hearth-faith ! Yet thou earnest 

Amply fulfilling (if fulfilling still) 

The poet-expectation from the first — 

If more than merely as 1 yearn'd for thee 

In prophecy, yet of heart-yearningness 

Fair apposite and archetype; that youth 

Learn'd best its own high hope, maturing with thee. 

And now thy child is as a second spring. 



51 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VIII 

A SECOND spring by this, that in the house 

Of marvel-valuation, love for love. 

Shall earth a budding worth to that shy ken 

Acquire and life be May-time; even as now 

Unto our eyes half-aged yet the child 

Contributes youth not solely as by sight 

And sound to year-dull'd lymphs acoustical — 

Ah, not to these alone but to a power 

Within us of a sense-resilience, 

A blithe resurgence, child-worth cosmical. 

Inventive of the very infanthood 

Its child-world: hour by hour, an archetype. 



52 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



IX 

And so, beloved, how blessed is the birth 

Of childhood, an from mutuality 

Like thine and mine it leapeth, ready-born 

Unto a spring-world (though earth-mists be wan) 

Of vivid valuation, conscienced worth. 

At will which apprehends in beauty-thrill 

The least incipience of a person'd power! 

I doubt me, were so innocent a thing 

Presented to a solitary source 

Which carried ne'er, within, love's master-mood 

Of estimation all-intuitive — 

I doubt me, scarce were infancy a soul! 



53 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



For how might such youth take or life-source yield 

(And thus in yielding earn unto oneself) 

The intimate wardship of the innocent 

Who owe by no accomplishment appeal 

Nor claim respect by any strength of truth? 

They are but as expectancy, an hope 

For somewhat which, sans parent-sense of soul 

Intuitive afforded best by love. 

Were nought, no goal, no brave entelechy 

To claim life-recognition — that my son, 

Were he not son in virtue best of thee 

Within me, ne'er had sensed a spiritual. 



54 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



XI 

For well might man, a creature cognitive. 
Perceive in all things but subservient use 
Maybe, some hostile will-recalcitrance 
Or plain indifference of the physic-fact 
Supposed, nor realize in reality 
For guerdon e'en of bare unignorance 
And crass force-exploitation, spiritwise 
Some modicum of grace intuitive. 
Incipient understanding of the heart 
For soul-projection comprehendingly; 
Well might the manhood or the child alike 
Miss self-avow'd world-ideality: 



55 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XII 

Having, perchance, small love within himself. 
How sad, had not a tenderness instinct 
Already brimm'd within those starry eyes 
Of his, which beam upon a beauty-world 
Assured of interest and estimate 
By intercourse wherein the hourly round 
Hath sign of valuation, person'd proof 
Of furtherance, heart-inference! And so. 
Pity a world whose infancies had source 
In physic-mating of the Science-State 
And grew, cant creatures of a tyranny. 
Stale-hearted to subserve an earth of waste. 



56 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



XIH 

It were not, faith forbid! that child or man, 
As though unsocial, should with unrestraint 
Indulge a wandering and flexile lust 
For first this toy and whimsy (be the toy 
Or idol-wax or sentient womanhood) 
And then on pretext of a soul at large 
Cast over and betray the trust-enforced. 
Nor should a fair consent half-palliate 
The outrage on an object-dignity 
Profaned in duplication. Spirit unique 
Hath perfect social place: the world-of-love. 
An universe each-individuate. 



57 



POEMS DOiMESTIC 



XIV 

And so the social regulation holds 

Of the manhood-play of potent parenthood 

Its faithfulness to that wherein the being 

Of love's life-partner most may hope to owe 

Intrinsic world-proportion. If love's health 

Require that infancy be physic-borne 

Of noblest frame and bravest intellect. 

Such strength of worldhood therein founds upon 

The perfecting selection of the soul, 

The insight of a value absolute 

And undisplaceable; which at the worst 

Compensates and suffices though we die. 



^S 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



XV 

Ay, what for gain or loss were posable. 

Where value ultimate in furtherance 

Of personal mutualisms were unknown 

And only arid use-impanderings 

To scarce-acknowledged lusts false-heartedly 

Did unction at the burial of soul? 

Ay, how were worth conserved where worth's high 

source — 
In individuation by a love, 
Affording permeant criterion 
For estimate in spirit of all things 
(Their immanencies and their powers-of-art), 
Unique — were heart-denied out of the earth? 



59 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVI 



For him, then, as for me hath been thy wonder 

A wide-world opening and a freedom through 

The universal home and fire-sweet hearth; 

Thy chamber as the solar cradle-source 

Of artist-immanence, a poetry 

Based best in earth-avowal, in the bare 

And dun-wan, lowly, mystic majesty 

Of this chill season (seen as from within 

The seed-sparks of earth's myriad ember-germs!); 

Whilst thereby best in spirit contributive. 

With power impregnate of the sympathy 

Most highly human, cosmic of the man. 



60 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



XVH 

Myself with new-found friends the year-end spent 

In vigils of a poet-sympathy 

And goodliest musics on the midnight pour'd; 

New friends, of artist-insight Hke to thine 

And kindliest married confidence. To them 

Be humblest praise for outlook spiritual! — 

But now, in home-return where home scarce seems 

Were friendship-memories of scant avail, 

A frame, a foil perchance for bitterness 

Of this dark moment. If the song swell not 

In celebration of such spirit-watch. 

Be no ingratitude imputed for it ! 



6i 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVIII 

Ah, therefore, home! home! where the merely man 
May hold thee and upon the upturn'd brow 
Of him my spirit's son (being born of thee) 
Imprint a benediction! Home! For death 
Might any hour afford, to thee or me 
Alike, what want of death-philosophizing 
Which haply still might fail us at the need! 
Thou, then, might'st read in such a case untoward, 
This artship of thine inspiration, take 
Therein some consolation plausibly 
In here or there a love-light. Ah, but I 
Who, having writ, might not aid find therein? 



62 



POEMS OF A WATCH-NIGHT 



XIX 

Though would I not complain. For thou wilt come — 

Despite this folly of a ranting flux 

In fever-fond, frail volubility: 

The self-indulgence of a waiting mood 

Which merely wants thee, wants thee with the child 

As formerly, yet would not scant the scope 

One jot of your appointed liberties. 

The dusk hath voice without. But I within 

Have lit thy love upon our chamber-hearth 

Of spirit and warm me by the ancient lamp 

Of vestal oil; and send into the storm 

This greeting from love's old to love's new year. 



63 



WORK AND ART 



WORK AND ART 



I 

Beloved, our life hath special privilege 

(And, praise be! special privilege of all 

Who dwell with childhood, having insight of it!) 

For which indeed a private gratitude. 

In that our child alway exhibiteth 

The natural childness of humanity. 

We, gazing guardians, may haply fear 

A future for him brief or sufferant 

In body or in spirit; or we may dread 

(Beyond these ills as hell were under earth) 

Some yet unhinted ethic turpitude; 

Or we may hope for strength to strengthen him 



67 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



II 



And in the strait way keep him; or the glory 

Of souI-nobiHty see proved in him 

By natural bent and beauty heart-inherent — 

Who knoweth? And, o'sooth, the beauty of it, 

An character accrue in evidence 

Of moral apprehension, should itself 

Be splendor of aesthetic immanency 

To love's environment more fair, more true 

Than aught else here in prospect or here sung. 

And let there be within the expected years 

What fate of fine or foolish, joy or grief 

Need be! Our hearts shall face it and our wills 



68 



WORK AND ART 



in 

Assist, as wisely as a liberal love 

May feel and guide us to it, what of strength 

In moral aptitude and appetite 

Toward spiritual-won integrity 

Should, to the adolescence of the soul 

Within him, be in anywise attain'd — 

We aiding as intelligence-of-love 

And sympathy in soul-enthusiasm 

May aid by human purpose. But, beside 

The sense of hope and fear, the outlook and - 

The will to foster in the highest, springs 

A privilege, aesthetic stimulation 



69 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



IV 



Not heretofore by thee or me full-sung, 

But meriting, for serious import. 

The utmost of an art's imagining — 

For reason that its very fact induceth 

The artist-attitude, the poet-pulse 

Within all ways of action-utterance! 

The world, its business of our self-maintaining 

By exploitations of environment. 

The margin economic 'twixt the man 

And molecule converted to his use 

in furtherance anthropomorphic, this 

World-way is too much with us; and must aye 



70 



WORK AND ART 



V 



Too much detain man's forced attentiveness. 
Alas! it were not that the miseries 
Of poverty, the lacks of nourishment 
Or warmth maybe, the suffering uncured 
Of ills avoidable were negligible 
Nor crying-out that each hand in degree 
Of hand's capacity should lift the world 
To hours of lesser hardship (but of this 
More, more anon in terms of artist-help!); 
Nor were it that the labor of the body 
Bode of itself an evil anywise — 
Unless o'er-labor vitiate the frame 



71 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 

With weariness and with an heart-disgust 

For life by reason of the task untoward. 

No man need shame of labor; nor may zest 

Toward economic betterments from heed 

Of best nobility be anywise 

Taboo'd; but rather were a daily task 

(As task, of interest still but tentative) 

An honor'd social perquisite sustaining 

A sanity of fibre, body and soul. — 

Yet this, by no means that the brute-bound thrust 

Of hand or foot were better without brain; 

Nor that laborious bulk of ignorant 



72 



WORK AND ART 



VII 

Food-seeking were per se superior 
To such intelligence of world-control 
Which, howsoever selfish, yet may be 
By foresight as by insight veritably 
A world-beneficence because by wisdom 
Of intricate other-purposes directed 
To generosity in serving self 
And realization of the super-self 
Beyond horizon of the delving hand. — 
But liefer, beloved, sith in just such task 
(If mediative taken, zeal-relieved 
From deadening absorption; quicken'd by 



73 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VIII 

Infinity felt therein of inference 

And all-assumption) may the task's own beauty 

And wonder of purport penetrate the man — 

And meanest world-requirements so feed 

A splendor of the spiritual-world. 

The universe-of-value which no use 

Of exploitation toward a truth-without 

(Conceived as other than that truth-of-task 

Appreciable by the private heart) 

Could innerly establish. So were labor 

(And thus alone a glory spiritual 

Rightly assertive) — so alone were labor 



74 



WORK AND ART 



IX 

A PRIDE of human life and of its hire 
High-worthy; otherwise, when wrath with sweat 
Vies in an ill-contentment, wholly vile. 
Unworthy of the dole that staves-off death — 
An empty clamor, doubly pitiable. 
The laborer's loud demand as though on earth 
Were brute-borne thrust alone the gauge of merit 
And wage the guerdon solely without shame! 
Heed we and all men, love, that world's life-burden 
Wax not too great; though, save the spirit be meek. 
Were every task reluctant and no goal, 
However set, so easy as would yield 



75 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



X 

To effort felt not too immoderate! 

And thus were spirit rector at the last 

'Soe'er we guide as by antagonism ! — 

Thus, love, indeed were labor valuable 

If just by some least world-consistency 

Adumbrate there for hint of an all-thought 

(A work-of-conscience cosmos-permeative), 

In push and proved displacement of an earth — 

Consistency, for subservience-to-soul 

Beyond an earth's own ken though none less of it. 

In mediation be the requisite 

Replacement-struggle with environment, 



76 



WORK AND ART 



XI 



Not solely for the body's sustenance 
(Requisite though enough!) but, as a source 
Of spirit-realization; that the use. 
Conceived in sort as for the potence' sake 
In posed accomplishment, incipiently 
Achieve the implication in each act 
Of worth-intrinsic as by utterance — 
The use (for use-sake felt within the deed) 
Providing, if but rudimentalwise. 
Criterion beyond an use-bej^ond 
And therefore differential from an art 
(Of function for intrinsic functioning) 



77 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XII 



Alone by some inadequacy yet 
Entail'd of use' false-logic how a goal 
Were inessential to the goal's-own means 
Nor aspect of the fmitude-supposed. 
But nathless, by the feel of inference 
Within the means, may end-within-the-work 
(Through universal implication) pose 
An influence of worth intrinsical: 
To render even labor's anti-art 
An immanence, if embryonic, still 
A promise of expression spiritual, 
World-permutation though necessitate — 



78 



WORK AND ART 



XIII 

And so serve artist-apprehension, love, 

In right of practised understandingness. — 

Sobeit with labor and the labor-need 

Which needs affords foundation for a work 

Not world-necessitated, save an world 

Be featured orb-reflection of the soul 

Which is world-apprehension actionally. 

And now conceive what special privilege 

Were childness-neighborhood — and this, without 

Regard for pedagogic purpose nor 

The crafts of guardianship; though with regard 

Alone for lore beyond all craftsmanship 



79 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XIV 

Save as ennobled in the lift of art. 
Of work for utterance' sake, the making new 
Of world and self alike in love's self-scheme 
Wherein the counterwills of men and things 
Contribute, not alone to variance sheer 
Or competition each-oppositive 
But, unto a composition overall! 
And overall, scarce by an alien pact 
Enforced upon a stiff reluctancy 
Within the proper nature of earth-stuff 
As though the human were inimical 
And earth oppress'd by spirit but, beyond 



80 



WORK AND ART 



XV 



Immediate nature of the plasmic stuff 
Maybe yet, humanly imposed upon 
A plasticism of entelechy 
To work-of-reverence amenable 
And influence of insight hospitable! 
That therefore is the ordering overscheme. 
Founded in apprehension of earth-truth, 
An wholeness in and through polarities 
By dint of comprehension — every fact 
Concluded of the scheme affording proof 
Thereby the richlier for diversity 
Of spirit-won control. For so therein. 



81 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVI 



That spiritual dignity is shown. 
Were all known items art-appropriate 
E'en for the stimulations felt therethrough. 
If but an uplift and a purport sane 
Obtain in evident efficiency 
As ordering-in-beauty. So, dear wife. 
Are we, by daily intercourse with one 
Whom burden of a world-necessity 
Weighs not, at hourly obvious benefit 
For vision of the vision of a play 
Inly so free-constructive, outwardly 
So amply adequate with means so weak 



82 



WORK AND ART 



XVII 

Save as the little means with warrant large 
Of privy connotation seem upborne 
As by imaginations of a god — 
Conceptions executed sans a source 
Of socially agreed-on inferences 
But rather with a provenance transmutive 
From each to any as the humor moves 
Of flexile self-projection. Dear, that thus 
The fixture-meanings (meanings but in name) 
Of daylight-dim environment acquire 
A cordial and a curious valuation 
In perspicacity of fresh conceit. 



83 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVIII 

That each seems in the course of evermore 

A mutual genesis, creation-flux 

Awide through myriad hitherto half-seen 

Soul-plausibiHties! — The hour of play 

In man's development; so vast a boon 

Not only to the youth which may perchance 

Endure, despite the oppression of the flesh, 

E'en in maturity of poet-kind 

But also, to the poethood discrown'd 

Of us the onlookers; such hour of play 

In him ere age-responsibilities 

O'erwhelm: 't is this which unto all mankind, 



84 



WORK AND ART 



XIX 

So forth as childness be of neighborhood, 

Granteth an ultimate grace and privilege. 

'T is true that, sans responsibility, 

The art remains but playtime, socialized 

In least degree and dealing seriously 

With Httle but hope's whimsy; lusts, or fears 

'Gainst abrogations, as of fancied facts 

Or worthier arthoods of another's skill. 

But, with responsibility, nowise 

Need burden, flesh-reluctance, of the self 

Creative from the hourly circumstance 

Of cosmic counter-poise the poise o'erwhelm 



85 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XX 

Of high self-exercise in utterance. 

For only with responsibility 

By social-inference of counter-will 

Can insight of the other-self obtain 

A method — and avoid the huge mistake 

Whether of solipsistic lunacies 

Or substitutions of the counter-self 

Supposed (by mathematic formulism 

Of object-fact for datum unitary 

Proponed in lieu of tropism self-avow'd) 

For self-approval of world's ways and means, 

In wisdom and in pity-sympathy 



86 



WORK AND ART 



XXI 



O'er-taken for the instruments of speech 
Each in an order new and not its own: 
Demonstrably both yet of self and world 
Afresh defined for mutual-distinct — 
A method in the building (from within 
World-objectivity) conformably 
To spirituality and thus to truth. 
And else were art or as a calculus; 
Or as a lax indulgence of the terms 
Of sight and voice sans sanity innate — 
Poor outcome of an utterance, ne'er so rich 
In narrower self-assertions though its ranting 



87 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XXII 



Ring unto eye and ear! But, with the assuming 

Of star-borne intercourse and immanence 

For basis of the industry of art, 

May art, through just art's own salubrity, 

Enhearten very world with artist-help. 

An aid to labor by ensample yielden 

Of labor in an overt lifting-love. 

Of industry as universe-alive. 

Vivid and open of entelechy 

In action-soul concentred; that such art 

Makes (without aim extrinsic, pedagogy 

Nor propagandism any of a creed 



88 



WORK AND ART 



XXIII 



However noble) a nobility 

Effective for world-uplift, if alone 

By so forswearing every use-beyond 

The inward universe-of-utterance: 

By esoteric poise all-dominant. 

And thus the parent-part, in artistry. 

May find perfected counsels influencing 

The spirit-potency of him the child. 

Not as by crafts of urgent guardianship 

But, by due exercise of insight yielding 

A source of apprehension in the highest. 

For love-truth, wise respect betwixt the twain 



89 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XXIV 



Though ne'er so infant he! — And therefore, love. 

The recognition of the artist-truth 

In things of childness, playtime as it be. 

Yields privilege indeed though no release 

From soul-maturity. The wonder of it 

Is, scarce for imitation (that the heart 

Should mouth awild !) but, for the liberation 

From overweight of earth's necessity 

By sign, howe'er half-crude in childishness. 

Of reason'd possibility to move 

Life by the utter'd insight of a truth 

Amenable, and so compatible, 



90 



WORK AND ART 



XXV 



Not with an order alien but, with powers 
Autonomous of apprehensive zest 
At permeation of the things perceived. 
And thereupon this screed, scarce self-insane 
Sith order'd of an insight of the truth 
How labor were a life-necessity 
And social-inference within the thought 
The very stuff of art; though none the less, 
For all its earnestness and intricacy 
Of reason'd import, yet, a lyric mood 
Akin to childness, in acknowledgment 
Of playtime and art's infinite privilege 



91 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XXVI 



Of innocent pretence. But such pretence, 
O love, is that which, as 1 think of thee 
Or picture him in every moment-mood. 
Thrills with the sense of spirit-intimacy. 
The entering-in and alway living-through 
Thy beauty and his splendor as mine own — 
These nowise thereby less the truth of him 
Earth's bright, brave boyhood nor of motherhood 
By any grief pervertive; that the task 
Of this dim-searching, lorn necessity 
Of utterance is as a morning smile 
Greeting an art-eternal hour of play. 



92 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



I 

Beloved, this very earth of thee and me 
Hath fallen on evil days: a suffering 
Unprecedented sprung of furious hate; 
A devastation and an holocaust; 
Murder and rapine; treacheries and lies; 
Old oaths forsworn and righteousness denied; 
A creed of ruthless power; the right of might; 
And proud contemning of the claims of love — 
A world run mad and boasting of its sin 
And crying out with pain and cursing peace; 
A world in hell-fire verily! — And we 
Loving and living: though with souls of shade! 



95 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



II 



The sun, morn after morn, yet riseth on us 
To glad our souls of grief. But we, with eyes 
Well-nigh tear-fill'd to take the splendor of it, 
Aweep to feel the cosmos-undismay'd, 
Turn to the daily task (we twain and he 
The waxing childhood) as with confidence 
Of infinite love and trust within our hearts 
Either for either; though with intimate trust 
In man's humanity, with confidence 
In civilization's mighty moralism 
Crush'd down from out the daily dreams of us 
And nothing worthy-seeming that we do. 



96 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



III 

For we are human with the worst of them; 
Degraded and disgraced by battle-yell, 
By treachery and lies and oaths forsworn. 
The evil-boasting of our self-same earth, 
The epoch which we dwell in. We are lost 
In the labyrinth of wanton arrogance 
And unmorality — the loves of us 
Attainted in their hypercosmic source, 
In civilization gone insane around us: 
We feeling world-responsibility — 
Whilst hating whomsoever upon earth 
We hold responsible for hell-disgrace. 



97 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



IV 



Ay, hating; and desiring worst dismay. 
Destruction utterly to them who seem 
By arrogance, by pride and lust of power 
With fatal-false philosophy of pain. 
To have forced upon the world precipitate 
A race-destruction! Sharing so too in sin 
By being but in their image consecrate 
To creeds of opposition! Through our love 
Either for either (and our hope for him) 
Hoping yet only, wrath and ruin to fall 
On them of this hell-surfeit — we being so 
A source at soul of that we most deplore! 



98 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



How doubly desolate! To feel our earth 

Satanic to distraction; though, to join 

Of inmost wish within the devihsh cirque, 

Parties to every purposed violence. 

To every harm and hurt within the world 

Till that the instigators be subdued; 

Acknowledging no hope of righteous peace 

Before they be disabled! Ah! to know 

The love of love, yet hate with strength thereby! 

To loathe the life-destruction, yet call down 

Annihilation on a kindred race 

Rather than leave their evil unavenged! 



99 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 



For this the misery is of men who meet 

(And needs must meet) a foul aggression through 

The weapons but of foul aggressiveness — 

Where all else fails, where love or reasoning sane 

Ahke are wasted on brutality! 

And thus the very sense of outraged shame 

Envenoms to the conscienced urgency 

The self-betrayal; and heart-righteous wrath 

Absolves not soul from self-abhorrence still. 

Ah, love! to live in a world where merit holds 

(High merit of home-defense) in bitter blood. 

In slaughter ruthless countering the foe! 



100 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



VII 

And nought can be of love or love-respect 
Save amid rallied armaments together 
Banded in forced barbarities! — The sun 
Riseth indeed in overt undismay. 
And sweet winds come and go, ay, whithersoever 
They list to carry clouds along the blue. 
And seasons pass. Earth's orbit undistraught 
Wears on-and-over man's enormities. 
But we, what of our prophecies, our faiths 
Of brotherhood and mutual furtherance, 
Our hopes of starry universalisms 
Within the heart of individual man? 



lOI 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VIII 



And if the solar peace-insistency 

Of daily overflux be inly proved 

An ignorance, an o'er-indifference 

To men's concern; else, as a mask, but hiding 

Infinities of strugglings self-contain'd 

In entities too insignificant 

For human apprehension; though be men 

At war but as example atom-set 

Bids to the issue — how might that preclude 

An influence of anger in the mind 

That man's iniquity should so ofl"end 

The cosmic mysticism of the soul? 



102 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



IX 

I GRANT, the silvery-shown indifference 

To men's obliquity and helplessness 

For proven; how the sun-white mists astream 

Owe ignorance of any hint of sin 

As of nobility. And yet no truth 

Of atom-struggling, for a paradigm. 

Obtains against a mind-morality 

Which, in the physic all-concatenance 

And systemization, hath an earnest still 

However half-articulant — the dream 

Of mutual helpfulness, the brotherhood 

Of hand, the world-well-wishing in the heart. 



103 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



X 



Within the heart! Ah, mainly then in this 
Might any hope be seen : that yet an heart 
Of honor is in us, bettering the worst 
Of pain's emergencies by far and wide 
Such danger'd heroism, in direst strait 
Such fix'd fideHty to comrade men, 
To comrade heroes, worsted in the strife! 
And what too hear we, 'neath the untiring sky. 
Of nobleness in upHft to assist 
The ruin'd under arrogance, the outraged 
Of men's brutaHty to suage and soothe — 
Man's impulse to atone the enmity? 



104 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



XI 

Yea, if the chief offenders in the sun 
Lack even charity to save the starved, 
The torn beneath their mad monstrosities. 
Shall that absolve us from the duty there 
Of reparation if in some least sort; 
Preclude us from the privilege of aid — 
Which such remaining modicum of faith 
In soul, in merit and humanity 
Demands; and, in demanding, lamps within us 
A sunlight and a dayspring: that we sense 
An hint of overhumanism the more 
Living and loving in the shaded soul? 



105 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XII 

Beloved, an overhumanism still! 

Not overweening in barbarities, 

Not crushing, desecrating but, by creed 

Of intimate faith and fervor of the blood 

Ennobling sacrifice; by sympathy 

Itself transforming to a perfect pledge 

Of honor among nations! — Love, all hail 

Unto thy mothering love — where hate obtains 

Dominion undenied, yet, hate beyond. 

The personal devotion undismay'd; 

With hope toward something of a nobler earth 

Beyond our generation: in his eyes! 



1 06 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



XIII 

For he shall live, we trust, to learn of earth 
An epoch (ay, and bear an heart and hand 
To such accomplishment) where neither war 
Nor internecine strife of violent needs 
May harbor; but where generosity 
Transcend mere justice; and the wise, alone. 
In loving service shall absolve the lands 
From bitterness, by unself-seeking rule: 
Self-seeking but in realizing so 
The heart's best-born desire. This he shall see. 
Haply. And in that hope alone we laugh, 
Hearing the happy laugh our home within. 



107 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XIV 



And meanwhile, in the shadow of a wrath 
Righteous, which burden bears of every wrong 
Inflicted by the pride of wickedness; 
And in the horror of our hating so; 
Oh, yet remember, love, how even they, 
Pledged though together to destroy the earth. 
Are in the brotherhood of fiends in hell 
Some least ennobled and not utterly 
Beyond the pale of love's humanities; 
Not hopeless of repentance when the strife 
Hath brought an infinite chastisement, abasement 
Meet for transgression, to their soul's reward! 



108 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



XV 

Hopeful: save (if by absolute mischance 
Of fate gone wrong and every plasmic errand 
Of spiritual process fruitless turn'd) 
Success in overwilful arrogance. 
The brutal rape and holocaust of earth. 
Survive the struggle of this counter-hate 
Aroused, and fitness prove unto the ends 
Of shame and sorrow and an all-despair! 
Ah ! aid we as we may the freedom-chance 
Of earth for ultimate splendor! Lest the spirit 
Turn backward — from this hour, a fiery force 
Dissipant, desperate, yea, self-foredoom 'd! 



109 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVI 



I YIELD me, worth were nought (the soul amazed 
At her own vacancy) were wrong in the world 
Outworn ! Yet wrongs enough are alway with us 
And ever shall be by the growth of truth 
Degrading to unworthiness the erst 
Ideal, if ne'er attain'd, yet aye outwon! 
Sobeit! But none the less there lifts a sweep 
Of spirit-interplay, the psychic splendor 
Of incremental process. Hereupon 
An anguish to live down, a moral death 
For man to rise from; and a dawn of soul 
To lamp us from the ashes of this age! 



no 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



XVII 

And in what trivial tasks, if faith be to us. 
May seed the time's salvation and the springing 
Of loftier truths than earth before hath known ! 
Among the women sittest thou who sew 
The seam, who roll the linen for the sick; 
And salve a world-shame therewith hourly. 
And I, what can I; but in this to thee, 
This intimate, rhythmic commune, half-achieve 
For thee, ah, haply for his hour to-come, 
A record of the world-bewilderment — 
Saving in such expression still mine own 
Soul hourly: that otherwise would die! 



Ill 



ELEMENTALS 



ELEMENTALS 



I 

Beloved, we are not keepers of the clouds. 

Whether upon the mountains or within 

The thicket-verdures of the valley fall 

The thunder-torrents, these beyond the stint 

Of hand or help of ours have origin 

And fountain in the firmament. For these 

Are of the sea, the streams and open tarns 

Upsuck'd and saturate of atmosphere 

By very potence of the sun in heaven. 

The trees indeed, for virtue of their breathings. 

Exude and aid in endless interchange. — 

But we nowise are keepers of the clouds. 



115 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



II 

Forsooth our own outbreathings well may prove 

Not too contemptibly contributing 

To cyclic process; as the trees, ourselves 

Transfusers haply of earth's self-imposed 

Cloud-penance and purgation of the rains. 

Yet mainly, O beloved, are we found 

Recipients of a baptism unbeknown; 

A dim, cool consecration, unforeseen 

Within men's casual prospect; though none less 

Inevitable and compelling each 

To cloud-acceptance; howsoe'er the hope 

Of sunlight on the hill-top had upled. 



1 16 



ELEMENTALS 



III 



Within the cycle of the circumstance 

Of root and leaf we recognize the right 

In rain, where justice or injustice nor 

Obtain nor fail, the normal intercourse 

Requiring rain-completion — that the thirst 

Of the body merely as of bark and branch 

Be satisfied and verdure be sustain'd 

In luxury and umbrage overall 

The upland ledge that otherwise were bare 

And gaunt in glaring infertility 

Beneath a sun-scorch impotent. And so much 

Is rain a natural sustenance and splendor. 



117 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



IV 



But we are strangely from the life of earth 
Apart who would assume in happier hours 
A guidance to the chaos; who, creating 
An universe spirit-conformable. 
Essay with soul-responsibility 
A cosmos of the conscience; who be driven. 
At worst, as from within, dependent only 
On heart-born hopes that lift us or despairs 
Self-gender'd, if by disappointment, yet 
With sense of sad control — and we must learn 
As from the open'd book of natural things 
An irresponsibility anew. 



ii8 



ELEMENTALS 



It little matters that the woods may wail 
Or mountains murmur or the sea make voice - 
Which seem so inly deed-indifferent 
And apt in figure for the mood we fain 
Must feel if with our world we would be one. 
For ways of human power beyond our shores. 
From further than the brine-froth near about 
Of neighbor-seas, with overwhelming thrust 
Have push'd our human institution down 
From aspiration; and of blood and clay 
Compounded all the savagery revived 
Of outworn ages resurrected mad. 



119 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 

And we must learn how heart's amenity 
And sympathy in sunniness and help 
By gentle purports and respect of truth 
Are obsolescent under iron hands 
That reck not save of spoil and ruthlessness. 
[Sobeit. The soul of the world hath sicken'd quite 
And we of the world must die with it; to learn 
A refuge in the feel of cloudy things 
Their overcomings of the summer skies, 
And so allow the wonder: a special strength 
Vouchsafed, acquired so in the dwelling 'mid 
The mountains and the myriads of the trees. 



120 



ELEMENTALS 



VII 

And thus we risk upon the threaten'd steeps 

No obligation, but an exercise 

Of cloud-adoption, plunging upward yet 

In the crowded, mist-enshrouded forestries 

And fog-hung rock-caps; and the deluge take 

Where chance and the hour permit a sheltering, 'neath 

The matted, storm-wrench'd, gnarl'd and thicket 

boughs 
Of them the ever green, the ever shaken 
Who still maintain foothold and function there. 
The weight of earth-responsibilities. 
Too heavy for the spirit, falls away 
And leaves us native to the torrent-draught — 



121 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VIII 

Purged of the sickness of the soul of the world; 

And purified of weakness and of fear. 

The thunders lower upon us; that we stand 

Or crouch, as care may be, in the rugged cave 

To let the hail pass over — but avow 

The cosmic interruption without shame 

Of purpose frustrate where no aid can be. 

We breathe of the deluge and the fire a strength, 

As he who, after ages of a doubt 

That withereth action, in his nostril smelleth 

The call of battle, the abandonment 

To elemental conflict: and is glad! 



122 



ELEMENTALS 



IX 



\h, pity indeed the loss of crystal-clean 

Intelligence; of mystic insights sweet, 

Warm-penetrant athwart an orient haze 

With friendship for the furthest! But proclaim we 

The grandeur and the innocence of him 

Who, under stress of barbarous circumstance, 

Without dismay takes up the darts and slings 

To live or die as earth hath press'd him to it — 

Gigantic at the heartstrings, if in stature 

Dwarf'd by the very monstrous palls, the glooms 

And menaces of mountains and of sea, 

Compell'd for hearthstone and for homestead to him ! 



123 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



Compell'd? — O may we, even from the verdures 

And shelterings of the sated mountain-vales, 

By will to wreak with utmost element 

Dare freely yet the launch in the lifting flood 

Of the troublous, foam-fierce maelstrom; where the 

clouds 
Have origin in main (and all above, 
Below is without mercy!); where is no 
Refuge nor help save in the hopeless pride 
Of meeting each wave-outrage — rearing once 
And once again till the last smother fall 
That shatters into a wreckage o'er the deep 
The spirit of truth which bravely had held on! 



124 



ELEMENTALS 



XI 

Beloved, the world's a-welter in the throes 

Of far-flung rapine. Yet here our hearts have learn'd 

The hint of heroism, a taking-o'er 

Of the hatred without shame of consequence 

Nor justice-fear at earth's inevitable. 

The purpose halts not though the feet turn back: 

The conscience breatheth though the body drown. 

Lifts in the lurch of love's dismantled prow 

At face with such destruction. — May the hands 

Clasp each of me and thee when that day come; 

Not keepers defeated of the clouds which whelm. 

But natured, splendid in the storm-delight! 



125 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XII 

With thee, may all be suffer'd of the soul 

Or body which the future shall betray 

Not blithely, perchance, and yet in heroism 

Of welcome; sith to storm the world hath come 

And thou and 1 are children of its power! 

And thou and I forsooth, a power have won 

Of innocence; acceptance, mountain-strong 

And forest-wisdom'd, of the clouds our spirits 

Had erst-while sicken'd-with in self-foreboding 

And condemnation that we could not clear 

Their omen from the heavens. Dear love, they loom. 

And we, our brows are bared, abiding them. 



126 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



I 

Beloved, there is a twilight of the soul 
Too like the austere twilight now descending 
Earthward from out the eastern sepulture 
In sombre, dim envelopment along 
The rugged valley-steeps, the mountain-tops 
And even at the last over the sea, 
That westering ocean which so radiantly 
Re-echo'd from her purple-tremulous deeps 
The crimson day-blood cloudward lingering — 
The clouds which now themselves to olden ash 
Are deathlier turn'd. Beloved, there is a shadow 
Descending dusk indeed over the soul. 



129 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



II 



The mountains may not, nor the darkening air 
Remember of the sun-time; nor themselves 
Suspect of night-causation, bearing blame 
For revolution from the light away. 
They are, for truths at large, but this they show 
A beauty and a pathos, if thou wilt. 
Unto the observation and the insight 
Of him who, lonelily and sadly station'd, 
Regardeth them for sign and symbolling, 
For planet-image of the sickness in him: 
He aiming only that the beauty there 
And pathos may inform and mark the song. 



130 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



in 

In earlier, happier song I fain avow'd 

For nature-process and environment 

Evidence of a monad-inference. 

Transfusion spiritual through-and-through 

Confocuss'd and self-centred, psychicwise 

With infinite diversity, to each 

Identical if indiscriminable 

Object of intuition-sympathy. 

But not of man's soul-chemic passioning 

Are earth-hood, sea or air — if theirs be feeling 

And vague envisagement of outwardness, 

We dream not theirs an inward self-humane. 



131 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



IV 

Thus to their mass no insight may ascribe 
The speechless pains, tongue-numbing memories 
Of life-chance and of powers a-worn in waste: 
Not to themselves, whate'er the silence of them. — 
And, lo! if memory were theirs, forsooth. 
Should hope, the sure anticipation still 
Of sun-return, a twilight-dawn achieved, 
Be also of the mountains, air and sea. 
And something of a constellated glory 
Shall crown the calm confession, thus should earth 
Declare within herself the conscienced source 
Of nighthood-derogation, cyclic shame. 



132 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



'T WERE sweet, o' truth, and inly comforting 

To ponder of the distant crystalline 

Its clean and penetrating, infinite 

Sparks of the conflagrations nebulous 

Whereof the valleys and the hills and sea 

Are framed in far foundation. And, though clouds 

Be cold and nigh-impervious between 

(Enshrouding, from all sight of comet-flames 

Or sister-spheres among the systemings 

Of the solar incantations), yet a sense 

That where be earth there constellations hover 

For firmament — I ween were comforting. 



133 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 



Such for the daedal earth, of substance still 

With the overarch, the vault of firmament — 

Beyond mere exhalations sorrow-like 

From the bosom of the blank self-banishment, 

The nightly-exile from her source-of-soul 

(That warmth and light) whence heart hath turn'd 

away. 
Such for the outward earth. But what of one 
Who hugely (though of spirit-stature small!) 
The titan-friendship of an earth assumed 
To dwell as chthonic bulk upon the hills 
Or brood in half-divinity the sea — 
Shall he, in human failure, feel the stars? 



134 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



VII 

Behold, I erst above a broadening ocean 

And in the shimmering valleys or upon 

The primal outlook of the mountain-tops 

Stood and the vast world-wakening have seen; 

And waken'd with the dawn-tide inwardly. 

The sun I have known upsprung with sudden speech 

Even from the red of the wave or, 'mid the quaver 

Of myriad forest-matins, piercing strong 

A vivid, myriad-shafted aureole 

Through temple-aisles of trees, steadfast, faith-fiU'd. 

These wonders of renewal have I seen 

And know them to be record in the soul — 



135 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 



And prophecy: so far as dreamless earth 

Now in yon autumn twiHght swooneth off! 

Her stars shall keep their watch; and heralds on 

Her forest-pinnacles (the buds, bough-born) 

Of restoration; and the birds at last 

Of earth-new springtime shall announce to sense 

And soul the advancing day! But in mine heart 

1 feel not spring adventive nor return 

Of day unto my spirit. In the clouds 

Of ashening birthright doth the very blood 

For conscience of the mood mysterious 

And blame of the consecration, faint within me. 



136 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



IX 

Yea, and where be the stars, for one who feels 
As from the first the shroud within his soul 
Of failure to achieve the heart of day? 
Ah ! where, that consolation of the skies 
Their cooling watch upon our planet-peace, 
With morrow-dreams of strength-reception aye? 
I blame not clouds, mere mists of star-fill'd fate. 
Which drifting hang above the wanton-frame 
Of him who 'mid the mountains and the sea 
Had self-contended with a giant-hope 
To speak, to sing and usher-in the morning — 
But lays him self-subdued despairing down: 



137 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



X 



His shapeless soul supine upon the hills. 

Not as with their everlasting certainties 

Of sun-recurrence but, within his heart 

The shrinkage and the shrivelling of leaf. 

The bareness of the frost-betrayal, frore 

With ice-anticipations and the night 

Which (blameworthy in shame-acknowledgment 

Of shadow-turning) never may renew 

The cycle of completion; but, or e'er 

The natural years of man, hath yielden him 

To cloudship, and the way of fate hath gone — 

Supine upon the hills without their strength! 



138 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



XI 

'T IS true, 't is true, as I ere now have sung, 
How smokes of earth's great madness overseas 
Are gather'd and contribute in the soul 
(Though raged beyond responsibility) 
To pessimisms of the advancing dusk. 
Perchance, without such pall of frightfulness, 
The titan-friendship well had been sustain'd 
In dusk-tide, as in dawn-tide, confidence. 
But, such as world-times are, must we of the world 
Be free; or fail. And in the loss of faith 
Must come no coward cry to curse the clouds, 
No spirit-unction by such blame-recourse. 



139 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XII 



Ay, such as the world-times are and of their judgment 

Must men be judged, if of the titan-part 

Our purpose would be aim'd. And in a world 

Of war and torment have our hearts been tried — 

Helpless the right to aid and agonized 

With hate and horror of triumphant wrong: 

And may not be appeased. That of men's earth. 

Mine own, have 1 been broken and dismayed 

Despite some voice of bombast. And I take 

The circumstance of such environment 

Unblamed, if unaccepted, of the soul — 

To blame me of heart's fatuous revolt. 



140 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



XIII 

It may be that the reeking wraths of the world 

Exhaust them ; and an era of a peace 

Ensue though with abiding bitterness 

At infinite injustice unavenged — 

Or very vengeance unto righteousness 

In sort establish men's millennium; 

That soul may cease concern with force and hate. 

To find in earth a world of sympathies 

New-based, maybe, on hero-sacrifices 

Now wide-prevailing. But my present soul 

In this her circumstaiice of overwrath 

No sacrificial heroism hath shown. 



141 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XIV 



And thus no claim to share and sympathy 

Were mine in the reconstruction: from the world 

Of outward hope and social help humane, 

The coming overnature of mankind 

Their body-politic and civil spirit 

Shut out — by the cowering now from sacrifice, 

The slinking from furtherance to the threaten'd 

righteous 
In such least kind as, sooth, were practicable 
Despite in main the manual impotence! 
And, thence, from any aid as any burden 
By civic intercourse the chthonic heart 
Must faint, to feel the titan-failure still. 



142 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



XV 

Yet may it be that a swerving of the worlds 
All-innocent of ethic influence 
May undeservedly expose to a dawn 
The spirit-prostrate, from the wheel of earth 
(Broken but unembitter'd of the blame) 
Uplifting scarr'd and gaunt unto the warmth 
Of sun-revival : with a chasten'd heart 
Through memory firm of froward fruitlessness, 
The mastery of a meek Hyperion-mood 
Avowing, he (to sacred springs of song 
Devoutly bending) in the new-born light 
Bathing his body of humanity. 



143 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVI 

For this, the miracle of heart contrite, 
There surely hath been everywhere of men 
When twilight on the self-supported spirit 
Had fallen, yet the earth-mother too been kind 
Where supine lay the soul over her hills — 
The spring-sight and the peace of cosmic day 
Vouchsafed of largess to the hopelessness ! — 
But now it is that twilight of the spirit; 
And cloud (the fate unblamed which cometh ever 
Of overweening and unmaster'd hope) 
Impends; and mists within the shame are mix'd 
Of him who feels an autumn come too soon. 



144 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



XVII 

Indeed, indeed, beloved (for the soul 

Must needs her failure flatter at the end 

With subtler unction) was the spirit-search 

Supposedly by universal sunship 

Guided, and of an all-intelligence 

(The clear crystalline of an open sky) 

Transfused, irradiated! But the clay 

Of a mind opaque was mine. The spirit gnome-like 

In delvings after heaven-unvalued things 

The glitterings of a momentary greed 

Ransack'd — when wealth were of the holy heaven's 

Sunshine; heart-guarded in the eyes of thee! 



1-45 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XVIII 

I WAS not fit, beyond thy guardian arms 
To thrill upon the hilltops, to adopt 
The tempest-courage and the ocean-joy 
Of grand contention. For the bulk of earth. 
The breadth of ocean was not of my spirit 
Her stature. And the haven of my heart 
With all a leafy benison and solace 
Of morning song and sunlight-sympathy 
Was rather of thy limit-infinite. 
The woman-universe, to dwell therein; 
Nor painfully the glimmering fatuous 
Of elfin candle aimlessly pursue. 



146 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



XIX 

For such, beloved, hath the sun supposed 

On hilltops of the spirit proved at last — 

No heaven-luminary orbit-poised 

But, just a glow-fly gleam as wildereth. 

O'sooth, there seemeth, now the wearied eye 

Allows of woodland intimacies so 

The gentler registration, here and yon 

A more-than-glow-fly gleam, in reason'd errand 

Flickering the white-stemm'd paths; now near, now 

far 
As fortune favoreth the search for me — 
Thy search: for one unworthy of thy sight 
Save as he lays him down — to burial. 



H7 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XX 

Beloved, the darkness falls, the drift obscure 
Rolls in and over from the sombred east 
Till hilltops, ay, and valleys in the gloom 
Are nigh confounded, low and high alike 
Unworthy-seeming that the ashen'd gleams 
Still shaft o'er sea's sun-regions westering 
A seeming-memory. — And wilt thou yet, 
With starrier lanthorn through the wooded glens 
Roaming in mercy as in grief, thy Titan 
(No bulk upon the mountains but, a child 
Too far from thy protection wandering) 
Find; and his tired body bless with leaves? 



148 



POEMS OF A PESSIMISM 



XXI 

And, lo! there is to me also a child. 

Thy child who waxeth to the mountain-dawn 

Even as my soul hath shrunk — that he and 1 

Transpose the music of our spirits: I 

The self-dismember'd; he the forest-youth 

With lyre of mine own heart-strings loud and high 

The matin-song unto the sea and air 

Declaiming on the hillside. May thy voice 

With his have tender antiphon. The birds 

Shall with you join. Whilst 1, beneath the charnel 

Embedded of the ember'd forest-wrack, 

Suffer some resurrection, hearkening! 



149 



PROPHETICS 



PROPHETICS 



I 

Dear heart, well-nigh unheeded hath the spring 
Swift-stolen upon us — all at once the sun 
High-mounted; and a myriad sympathies 
Of sap-things and of vernal imagery, 
Shimmering the white-shone warmth to rainbow- 
bloom. 
Are vivid over earth: whilst thou and I 
Heart-held in rigor of a wintriness 
World-done-with, yet half-wittingly awake 
To move and find our being with the birds, 
With woods and sun-sweet music; we ourselves 
Bewilder'd with the outward suddenness 
Of wonder and in spirit unprepared. 



153 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



II 



While winter was, we fancied in the sky 

A crystalline perfection, on the world 

A rigor of purity, an open heart 

Of fortitude to bear the bitter years 

With whatsoever of a suffering 

Earth's hour had earn'd of fate; fain we endured 

The desolation as with dignity 

And power, too unaware how all within 

Was image of the desolateness there. 

Now by the sudden ardency of earth 

Are we found voiceless, overaw'd at last 

At world's quick courage to be born again. 



154 



PROPHETICS 



III 



But we with the year who move must find a tongue 

Or die heart-dust, evaporate away 

With ice-bonds in the echptic crucible 

And calor of earth — as streams to a spirit-sea 

Rather and sun-sparks of the world-aUve 

To join in a fortitude of ardency, 

A rigor of life-creation and be part 

Of the coming human-whole regeneration, 

The turning of the nations as of earth 

To uplift and an art of furtherance. 

The openness of aid-appreciative. 

Because of the very death-strife that hath been. 



155 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



IV 

Dear heart, for what of wonder and of song 
Hath ever been, save that in sacrifice 
Was seeded and in rigorous sepulchrings 
Enwomb'd and nurtured to the burst of birth? 
Shall we be bHnd-born, barren, sith the world 
With sacrifice hath reek'd and reeketh still — 
Though now the beauty bought of priceless blood 
Blooms evident, declared under the sun 
Where man hath nobliest died defending man? 
If little of our souls in song sincere 
Hath come to argument the winter through, 
Shall such half-silence now prevent the praise? 



156 



PROPHETICS 



V 

A SOUL of Song perchance the winter through 

Was veritably in us, if attaining 

No warmth against the tempest, nought of tongue 

To tame the rigor to a tempest-tune — 

As had been formerly or e'er the world 

Was with an human wickedness o'er-run. 

Which sembleth winter in its fear and grief 

Yet show'd not till of late and suddenly 

An hope of rectification : sacrifice 

To perfect purpose of salvation-wrought. 

Now, if in hope of final betterment 

The heart revive, a winter-song is born. 



157 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VI 

A WINTER-TUNE — the art which, sadly strong, ' 

Hath fervency, a rigor of sun-within 

Come to earth-understanding: bower and bird 

For image, figure of the fortitudes 

Which make a .music, mightily profound. 

Of the common courage and the common cause 

How death and dearth are (in the ultimate 

Of resurrection and of beauty-birth) 

Sith veritable, thus a source-of-song 

If only song be virile! Hitherto 

Hath soul half-sought a singing-paradise; 

Else mute remain'd, confronting verity. 



158 



PROPHETICS 



VII 

Now but our eyes are open'd. From the storm 

Of seeming-endless ice-drift wakes awide 

The wonder-earth, a sudden outwardness 

Of vivid paradise not world-beyond 

But here about us in the dooryard. Dear, 

The drift had in it such an artist-earth; 

And bitter skies, the splendor of beauty-bred. 

And shame was only that the tongue was mute 

In wilderment of such an evidence. 

Not daring-desperate deeds of thrice-arm'd men 

'Soever noblest in defence of man 

Alone need lift the world. For there is song. 



159 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



VIII 



With thee I turn to the open'd singing-page 

Of earth, to read therein the worth-of-man, 

The values which ennoble men's defence 

And yield a loftiest dignity and praise 

To terrible strifes. And, though we twain may strive 

not 
With hands unto the hour heroical 
Nor high an hero-tale with epic tone 
Descant (scarce pertinent the saga, then 
When our heart-metric earn'd a mother-tongue) 
Yet, after world be won and brotherhood 
Reborn, the rhythm of person'd sympathy 
May seem an insight worth new heaven, new earth: 



100 



PROPHETICS 



IX 



And therefore every effort of our hearts 
At earnest utterance prove not earth-undue — 
Not too-inhuman in men's hour of pain 
And trial. For no taint of heedlessness 
In our tranquillity need hint of shame 
Soe'er, whilst the balk'd zest for right to smite 
Hath hamper'd the rack'd spirit. At the worst 
Have our lives yearn'd toward earth's wintriness 
(To peril and perish should the foe invade) 
Yet felt the hearthstone sacred to defend 
And infinite duty in the tasks of home. 
But, now, fresh sense of warrant to the song! 



i6i 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



X 



This, yea,. there is about us which demands 

Resplendent utterance, thrill'd through and through 

With verity-respect; yet not unHke 

Dreams of a singing-paradise indeed! 

Dear heart, for but one moment suddenly 

Be heart-surprised; and, taken unaware, 

Believe in the rectification of a world 

From throes of human horror by the strength 

Of human manfulness, wrong to withstand 

And conquer; then with me, in voice uplift, " 

Allow the vigorous rapture and the word 

Which heroes home-returning have made good — 



162 



PROPHETICS 



XI 



Made plausible, by man's defence of man 
From soul-outrage, from savageries unmatch'd 
Since first creation groan'd; that now the heart. 
Which elsewise in an ice-bound tyranny 
Had wholly died, may feel an heat of hope 
(Grace be to them who bled that soul be whole!) 
And render in the sun-tide high return. 
For by men's spirit steadfast hath the spirit 
Found verification; and her celebrance 
Of person'd insight, vivid warranty. 
Howbeit, the song may fail; but finds a theme 
Of cosmic praise with inward reverence. 



163 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



XII 



At least there is the springtime as of yore; 

And here the singing-heart self-found anew. 

And earth-perpetual and thou and I 

Come through the two-edged turmoil, without shame 

Re-dedicate to wonder — though the years 

Have darken'd something of the rainbow-bloom, 

For earth's long-battled winters. Ah! still stand we 

Impassion'd beneath an heaven of azure, gazing 

Down and abroad upon the woods and sea. 

And yet again the thrush-song; and the gleam 

Of myriads that are nectar in our nostrils. 

Scenting the breath with beauty, near and far. 



164 



THE SONNETS 



THE SONNETS 

' ON THE THIRD BIRTHDAY 

I 

Year unto year, for once and once again 
(A childhood trinity of holy days). 
Hath borne thee thrice anew, a thing of praise 
Each time and miracle — yet well-nigh pain 
For love that dwells upon the past and fain 
Would have thee as it had thee once, always 
A cradled innocence, and with amaze 
Mourneth an infancy at ruthless wane. 

But That thou art through every hour of change 

Were high humanity provenient, 

A waxing truth-containment, comprehending 

A world by sense and speech through all the range 

Of daily proof in soul-environment — 

For love's humanity, a lift unending. 

167 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

ON THE THIRD BIRTHDAY 

II 

And: though the tenderness ineffable 

Of thy first being is but lost and gone 

Unless for fond regret to ponder on; 

And though to love and lose were little well 

Save a new union yield an holier spell 

Of deeplier-wondering communion 

In spirit: such we find thee — loftier won 

Each love's fulfilment, where the first love fell. 

And thus that thou art verily a boy 

Of health and beauty, of a gentlest heart 

And merry, busiest ingenuity, 

Sith thou art manly at the man-child's toy 

And shalt be man with man's prepotency — 

Why, let life kiss thee for the life thou art. 



168 



THE SONNETS 



TO JANE IN HER MID-SUMMER 

And, whilst beneath thy bosky fostering 
The beauty of the bud-time undefiled 
Increaseth hourly of thy wonder-child 
And all's with him a vernal promising, 
With thee how is it in thine after-spring? 
Were it enough, prophetic-reconciled. 
To take earth's new faith with acceptance mild, 
Vicarious through autumn-questioning? 

Were it enough? — What wisdom, dear, were mor 
To learn earth's sap-upsurgence, not alone 
In youth-immediacy but, mature. 
Through rooted love's leaf-abnegation pure 
To realize in his nature as thine own 
The annual orbit of the forest-floor! 



169 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

SALVATOR MUNDI 

I 

Dear child, when I have seen thee, ruefully 
Reluctant, tear-stain'd to forlornness stand. 
Thy brow a misery and in thine hand 
The fragment-victim of thy tragedy 
Beyond this world's repair; whenas the shy, 
First hovering of the banish'd angel-band 
Perchance thine inmost innocence hath fann'd 
To ember-gleams of goodness: then have I 
Quick-snatch'd and kiss'd thee as we alway kiss 
The place of pain to bless and make it well — 
Yet impotent to press upon thy sin 
Such healing touch or salve the smart within 
By hope: a love-sign helpless but in this. 
That love in thee could lead thee back from hell! 



170 



THE SONNETS 



SALVATOR MUNDI 

II 

And therefore is it best that I should take 
Naughtiness to my bosom and afford 
Thee sense of cherishment to search the chord 
Of piety within thee and awake 
The slumbering ethic-light through thine heart-ache 
Of evil half-repentant. Not untoward 
The pressure of a strength of pity pour'd 
Which, in thy perilment, for thy will's sake 
Would fain transfuse the subtlest core of thee 
And entering transmute thy very dole 
To joy beyond an infant-innocence. 
But, ah, thine heart must earn an own defence 
To aid thee; or the very kiss of me 
^.onfirm thee in betrayal of thy soul! 



171 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

SALVATOR MUNDI 

III 

Something too much of this! — Dear child, thy toy 

Remains a broken token. But thy life 

Renews its pleasance o'er the pains of strife 

In zest and fresh-found vigor to enjoy 

The natural pastime of the happy boy — 

And earth is as it should be. If the knife 

Hath enter'd 'neath the heart-strings tremor-rife 

Of parenthood, need coward cry annoy 

The swift-forgetting little mind and heart 

Which wit not of abiding sympathies? 

Which wit not of the hourly crucifying, 

The sun-blaze and the blackness underlying 

Of fatherhood and motherhood apart 

Who watch thee with half-blinded agonies! 



172 



THE SONNETS 

THE FIRST DREAM 

I 

We, love, who wait upon his waking hours 
Through these soft years of soul-incipiency. 
Had heretofore (soe'er his head might lie 
Upon our bosoms pillow'd, or the bowers 
By love prepared retain him) to the powers 
Of sleep resign'd beyond all scrutiny 
The self behind the shut Hds. And the cry 
At waking well'd as from a world not ours. 

And, whether he had held within his sleep 

Strange vision uncompanion'd as our own 

Or dreamlessness without one finite flaw, 

We knew not. Till to-day a wonder deep 

Spake from the half-waked lips, in trust smile-shown. 

Of other little children whom he saw. 



173 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

THE FIRST DREAM 

II 

And then we told him how his gentlest dream 
Was not the truth of his wide-waken'd sense, 
And only he within the world immense 
Was with us, how the universal stream 
Unheeding of a tragedy supreme 
Flow'd on and over that first grief intense; 
Till he within our hearts had anthem'd thence 
Our childlessness — a psalm to troth's high theme. 

But then said we: Dear child, the dream be true; 
For faith is that within the heart of man 
Which maketh truth; and 'neath our fostering 
Dwelleth the seer-secret learn'd of you; 
Waiteth a guerdon since the world began 
Of unborn life to your companioning. 



174 



THE SONNETS 



FUTURITY 

Beloved, 't would seem as though thy share of pain 
Were meted in full measure: once to endure 
The very pangs of birth without birth's cure 
For thy rack'd soul's reluctance; and again 
Thy hopes of motherhood to dare in vain! 
'Tis very pitiful: perforce thy pure 
Delight of life-devotion to abjure, 
Despite the exacted sacrifice amain! 

And yet, beloved, about thy fever'd bed 

(As was not then when first came death to thee) 

A soft, small step of one that tenderly 

Looks up in search to serve thee ! — Were hope dead 

In hearts that yearn upon that lovely head 

And see in his the life-light which we see? 



175 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



CONTROL 



Haply by instinct only of a shame 
In witness of companions speed-outshined 
(Of mother or of father close behind), 
And baby-boyhood fear of coward-fame; 
Haply by hero-hardihood of frame — 
I know not. But, in fortitude of mind. 
Swiftly the tears are dried that flooded blind 
For grief of the fall which tripp'd thee without 
blame. — 

An infant stoicism so prompt and new; 
Such proud repression won of natural wrath 
At pain unmerited! — Ah, may the path 
Be scarce too smooth; that pitfalls, spirit-due, 
Evoke, from wails suppress'd, art's aftermath 
Of poet-utterances not a few! 



176 



THE SONNETS 



CONCERNING MELODY 

Dear singing child of mine and of her heart 
Who goeth hymning alway on the stair! 
Dear babe of ours who singest everywhere, 
Whilst yet thy lips unhelp'd may hardly part. 
With man-assumption of articulate art. 
Syllable eke from syllable ! what rare 
Instinct of music did our mating bear, 
To gift thee so with voice at thy life-start? 

Thy tunes are tender and of sweet accord 
With what in her, in me, must ever seem 
A source of life not unmelodious; 
A luminance — past embodiment in word. 
Though spirit-rhythmic as that raptured beam 
Which show'd thee first unto the tears of us! 



177 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

TO MY BOY, ON HIS MIGRATION 

I 

I BUILD for thee a chamber set four-square 
To every wind of heaven; but wherein 
Through latticed casements as long days begin 
The great, red sun with broad, benignant glare 
May find a mellow fellowship; and where, 
If wandering rains should dimly peer within, 
A gleam of many skies with merriest din 
Should answer the chill summons. For a flare 
Of golden covering on every wall 
Runs up to meet an evening, lambent glow 
Athwart wide-tillaged landscapes: that thy play 
May be encompass'd of an indoor day 
Forever kindly; though the night may fall 
Without, and coldlier stars may come and go. 



178 



THE SONNETS 

TO MY BOY, ON HIS MIGRATION 

II 

For I would have thee through the childhood years 
As thy young chamber, airily to west 
And east and south and north a rustic nest " 
And nurture-space that knoweth nought of fears 
But welcometh for kin whatso appears 
In earth's sun-freedom, while the livingest 
Of fire-warm hues within thy joyous breast 
Shall glad thy forest-playmates. And when nears 
Thy tired hour of twilight and a sleep 
Stoops o'er thee, that thy breathing lifts alone 
Within this chamber, may the guardian stars 
Stream inward at thine open casement-bars 
To yield an hint in dream of days full-grown 
When love may garner what thy soul shall reap! 



179 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

TO MY BOY, ON HIS MIGRATION 

III 

Yea, I would have thy boyhood learn to till 

Unto some bourn of vivid artistry 

Yon spirit-pastures underneath the sky 

Of ardent apprehension. Feed thy fill, 

O poet inchoate! of the well or ill, 

The bright or dark of nature's panoply. 

The glory or the shame that passeth by 

These windows of thy wisdom! For e'en the thrill 

Aleap in winter-passion, the storm-sweet sting 

Aswirl in purport piteous of the snows 

Shall not be thine in vain. — Come, rest thou here; 

Where elder youth will watch, with chanticleer, 

The coming of a morning: who arose 

But yesterday as from thy slumbering. 



1 80 



THE SONNETS 



REMEMBRANCE 

But then, the crib forsaken and these walls 
That nestled thee in thy lost cradle-days; 
These panes wherethrough the sun in soft amaze 
First warm'd thy wonder! — Ah! whate'er befalls 
Of splendor in the age that to thee calls, 
Know thou, O little child, how thy sweet ways 
Of infancy were perfect beyond praise; 
And how no fane nor glory-marvell'd halls 
Might e'er become thy manhood as this room. 
Begirt with gentlest scenes of homelihead, 
Approved thy fair beginning; nor thou, dead 
In fame heroic, bow with mighty gloom 
A nation's millions at thy laurell'd tomb — 
As I am bow'd beside thy baby bed. 



i«i 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



SEPTENNIAL 

The spring was backward, love, that other year; 

The winter over and its rigors spent 

Forever of my lonely discontent; 

But earth still lingering for the advent here 

Of her who unto every ice-bound fear 

Promised a solace of enfranchisement: 

For all, the storm-worn spirit underwent, 

A sun-warm'd flowering to fruition, dear! 

The spring is backward, love. For who would wish 

To hasten unto adolescence one 

Who with his bud-time ways half-babyish 

Enchants by hint of manhood unbegun 

The blush and brilliance of life's wilderness — 

Which yearly ripeneth manward none the less? 



182 



THE SONNETS 



TO JANE AT A THANKSGIVING 

Because you two within the house of soul 
Are one heart-hearthstone and together prove 
Inly an union'd adytum of love — 
Alike life's fane and hope-concentring goal; 
Therefore, within the cycle of the whole 
Annual influence of the spheres above, 
Thy star and his as with one auspice move 
And well-nigh in one dated orbit roll. 

Wherefore a single birth-song to recall 
The entrance of thy spirit as of his 
Within faith's universe: his childhood-four 
And thy fine tapers of a white two-score 
Greeting and beaconing the truth of this 
Conjunction of the love-light overall! 



183 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



CULTURAL POWER 

An overmastering philosophy 

Of overmastery, alas! hath driven 

The nations to insanity and riven 

All bonds of human brotherhood. The cry 

Of countless thousands outraged utterly 

Of them who with the overfiend have striven 

(Their bodies burnt and mutilate and swiven) 

Lifts from the pit of his barbarity! 

And in the heart of our humanity 
The cry hath echo: from the depths of soul 
A largess wrought of pity; a great ruth 
Born of a virtuous insight of the truth 
Of reverent sympathy: profoundly whole, 
Christ's overmastering philosophy! 



184 



THE SONNETS 

IN IDES OF MARCH 

I 

A SEASON is it when the mounting sun 
Shines daily largelier; the Hstening trees 
Half-budded yet are waiting in the breeze 
For far-arriven bird-wings, every one 
Expectant of a song still unbegun. 
Myself have many a year for dream of these 
Life-prophecies with inward melodies 
Thrill'd; and a singing-rapture blithelier won. 

Though aye the month hath meaning too of those 
(Our first-born; her whose being gave me birth) 
Who, unknown each to each, yet side by side 
In pitiful spring-death evermore abide; 
Who heed not how each breeze that warmlier blows 
Wafts from the skies a message over earth. 



185 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

IN IDES OF MARCH 

II 

And elsewhere over earth the spring's advance 
Hath heraldry but as a tide of death 
(With surge of every soul that sorroweth 
To anguish of the autumn's mad mischance); 
A rush of ruining ranks with sword and lance 
Athwart the winter's charnel-heaps; vow'd breath 
Of vengeance over him who suffereth — 
And justice though by hell's hot ordinance! 

O love, how take such bud-time save in tears? 
O love, how not rejoice, if presently 
The lance-thrusts of my chamber'd malady 
Turn in mine entrails; and a day of doom 
Lay me with him and her — to wait the years 
Which bring thee also to the dreamless room? 



1 86 



THE SONNETS 



IN IDES OF MARCH 

III 

Nay; nay! There lifts the luminance of life! 

And, lo! the dignity of mortal things. 

The broad soul-dedication, offerings 

Of sweat and pain beneath the altar-knife. 

Self-immolations of the lethal strife! 

Hark! and the vivid sweep with breast and wings 

Nestward of one that for the homing sings ! — 

And you, to love and live for, son and wife ! 

It matters little that the hands are tied 

By human weakness, whilst the mind and heart 

Godlike can apprehend; in feeling deep 

The pathos of the elemental sleep, 

Acclaim with myriad sympathies of art 

The season-quickening of the solar bride. 



187 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



STORM 

Beloved, a driven hour is on the world: 
A laden cloud-rack darkly over all 
Onsweeping and the sheeted hail-gusts swirl'd 
In fury on the earth — a tempest-pall; 
And warningly the thunder of the fall 
Of leaden, gale-lash'd surges (Ah ! high-hurl'd 
Their spume along the ocean waste!); with call 
Helpless, unheeded of the wings wind-whirl'd! 

A tempest-hour! For, far beyond the sea 
Whence cleaves this hurtling storm-wind, bursts in 

flood 
With sheet of leaden deaths upon the land 
The driven pall of iron and of blood; 
With consternation of the stricken strand 
At call unto the cosmic charity! 



THE SONNETS 



1915 

I 

Who had believed, O love, that these eight years 

Had darken'd earth's humanities so far 

That nation unto nation now (in war 

Terrible, internecine!) dread arrears 

Of rage with agonies and fury-fears 

Were rendering each to each; while, at the bar 

Of truth condemn'd, hell's horrid avatar 

Teutonic raves, convicted of her peers 

Yet wide-unpunish'd: for the wrong hath might? 

O love, and thou and I have come to hate 

The wrong and wish but war to wreak the right! 

Who had believed? — And yet the Walhall-night 

Enfolds, for all the outrage of earth's fate. 

Our primal perfect peace inviolate. 



189 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



1915 



For righteous is the wrath, as we have learn'd, 

(And very consonant with holy joy) 

Which leapeth up in judgment to destroy 

The seed of him who hath betray'd and spurn'd 

His oath; his neighbor outraged hath and burn'd, 

Tortured and crucified; without annoy 

Provocative man, woman, girl and boy 

Assassinate, tenfold thereby hath earn'd 

The felon-end mankind must execute. 

Yea, consonant with love, to lift secure 

The future human race lest heart be brute! 

And so an absolute union I impute 

To us who through the passing days endure 

Shocks of a strife, shall make the spirit sure. 



190 



THE SONNETS 



COSMOS 

The salt, wild sea was in my years of youth 
Breast-partner to the throes of surging thought, 
Best boon-companion to a soul o'er-wrought 
With violent impulse of tumultuous truth 
Sans bourn to sane ambition, without ruth 
Of reverence for authority in aught: 
An oceanic spirit, gale-distraught; 
An heart with want of harbor, in good sooth! 

But now with thee to yield a bourn in all, 

A measure of horizon immanent, 

Enarm'd (beneath the chartings of the skies 

In onward, reverent tranquilities) 

I voyage, sustain'd along the firmament 

As thy sweet, tameless breathings lift and fall. 



191 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



LODESTAR 

Athwart the welter of the flote immense 
Our vessel glided; at her distant aim 
Directed, yet half-swervingly she came; 
Answering the purpose or the child-suspense 
Of him, boy-arbiter of whither-whence. 
Her tiny pilot whom the new-earn'd game 
Of seamanhood the playmate waves to tame 
Enchanted for the human competence. 

And, thwart the foam humane with conquering prow. 
His childhood-spirit to a reason'd goal 
I tself directeth (ah ! the new-found soul 
Grown to the stature of the why and how!); 
Whilst right and left the wheel to every whim 
Turns; and to right and left the heart of him. 



192 



THE SONNETS 



TWILIGHT 



And now, while (dark upon a pain-worn bed) 
Alloweth my soul, in sick discouragement, 
Her failure — these my singing-fires nigh spent; 
And only for remembrance some charr'd thread 
Of thought whereby my birth-power had been led 
To any self-control or world-content — 
Now, whilst the zeal of poethood thus shent 
Torments me, through the shadowing is shed 
(The hour of hearth-side is it; homeward-hour!) 
A sudden, sweet and vivid childhood-chant 
High-quavering ardent in the echoey gloam: 
A song-rebuilding of the genius-home 
By him inheriting the wasted dower; 
By him, to turn the soul-dusk jubilant! 



193 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



ARTICULANCE 

Beloved, and what then shall I say of thee 
Whose poet stands disproven, self-confess'd 
All-ineffectual in the task address'd — 
How meekly, eagerly! — thy voice to be? 
How shall I speak of love who bitterly 
Avow ineptitude (whate'er the zest) 
Of rhythm or rhyme of mine to love's behest — 
That needeth speech of such nobility? 

That needeth nobler than might any man 
Proclaim; and scorneth nothing heart may give 
Of humblest utterance till earth hath end — 
Unto the last, though yet no line pretend 
A glamour of the grandeur that shall live: 
Thou counting love's what speech thy lover can ! 



194 



THE SONNETS 



OF HERITAGE 

Ah, feeling in myself the fault avow'd 
Of fruitless effort and a life at loss — 
Who onetime aim'd at mightiest truths across 
The infinite vistas and with voice aloud 
Declared in thee the universe endow'd 
Godlike and firmamental — from the dross 
And scum of mine own spirit, feebly gross, 
I gaze on him our offspring; and am proud. 

Proud of a fatherhood to such a child! 

For he in thy firm beauty is so wrought 

And steep'd with thine, the magic of his mind; 

That of the father-part how fear to find 

The empty imagery, or for aught 

Bewail in him thy being undefiled? 



195 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



JUVENTUS MUNDI 

O HANDS to work unwonted, little feet 
At will upon earth's by-ways hurrying past 
In half-pretended errand, mission sweet 
Sith self-imposed by each caprice the last! 
How at each fresh imperative (to meet 
Child-mandates of imaginations vast) 
Ye imitate a labor; yet and cheat 
Toil of its sting — in joy each tool held fast! 

Each tiniest skill in eagerness acquired, 
In gladness wielded, for the half-work's sake! 
O little hands and feet, so soft and small. 
So unaware of universal thrall! 
May ye, of play-imaginings inspired 
Life-long, the mightiest artist-tasks partake! 



196 



THE SONNETS 

MID-DECADE 

I 

By whimsy of the birthday benison 

(Oh! big and manful seems the small man-child!) 

Behold the mother with pretension mild 

Enarming in a rhythmic fro-and-yon 

And lullaby of infancies agone 

The five-year bosom-burden fun-beguiled! 

Whilst he, in merry antiphon and wild. 

Himself by song asserts the boyhood won. 

Sobeit. An admiration ever new 

Shall aid us in a life-time to defy 

The pain of vanish'd guardianships, regret 

Of cradled babe-possession ! — Dear child, and yet. 

However afresh to love thy love shall try. 

No speech than infancy can ring more true! 



197 



POEMS DOMESnC 

MID-DECADE 

II 

Ah, well I heed the weightier ethic worth 
Of earnest toward child-service, word and tune 
Selective to love-purpose, sonship-boon 
Ideal! And, lo! the piety-rebirth 
Haply in least achieved; at worst, in mirth 
Or grief attempted, wreath'd or rugged-hewn. 
An offering on art's home-altar strewn 
And sacrifice to this the parent-hearth! 

No doubt, dear lad, but every year shall feel 

The waxing moral instinct: brought at last 

To reverent, harmonied companionship 

In rich-won adolescence. — But the lip 

Of parenthood hath press'd and clipp'd too fast 

Fulfilment in thy cradle-land o'leal! 



198 



THE SONNETS 



TO A RHAPSODIST 

I'd ne'er have thought the nigh-forgotten rhyme 

Thus touching in its infantile address; 

Thus moving in remembrance of a time 

Age-irretrievable! A boyish stress 

And zest for courage of the goblin prime; 

A childhood-rapture of the elfin-press; 

Fantastic earnest of the. nursery mime — 

I thank thee, lad, for thy fine artlessness! 

Too far, too far, dear babe, am I astream 

Down the long, narrowing sluice-sweep of the years; 

Too sightless even for a drowning dream. 

Foundering forever with ignoble fears. 

But thou with art unguess'd hast time's tide turn'd; 

And youth'd me in a vision long-unlearn'd! 



199 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



INTERPRETATIONS 

How sweetly self-sufficient is the verse 
Of childhood to the childhood-utterance? 
How absolute yon impulse to rehearse 
In sage simplicity the fairy dance! — 
There is an art of innocence, none worse 
For being in the mouths of babes, perchance, 
Announced: whom unbelieven things immerse 
In faith, and man-rejected truths entrance! 

Ah, could I, love, but once forget to task 
The soul with inquisition of disproof; 
Neglect, of viewless images to ask 
The wherefore of their silence — nor, aloof, 
Avow the poet-failure; but with thee 
Take of our child such poet-ardency! 



200 



THE SONNETS 



THE FETE FORGOTTEN 

And thou another year hast lived away 

I n fond devotion of a perfect wife, 

A perfect mother — through the world's sad strife 

A poise of peace, a refuge in dismay, 

A very present heaven of everyday 

Where hell hath so got hold of outward life. 

Where furious hates at last are largeliest rife 

And men's divinity hath shrunk to clay! — 

And thou through this sad year hast been as erst 

Protectress, inspiration. Whilst my soul 

So troubled and so self-estranged hath lain 

That hardly for the solace of her pain 

Had she remember'd still, as at the first. 

To touch thy garment-blessing and be whole. 



201 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



DIVINITY 



Nor mine own festal eve hast thou forgot; 
But crownest it, to one more wreathed stage 
Along the years of our love-pilgrimage, 
'Soe'er obscure the altar of thy lot! 
Yea, thou of faith wilt not abate one jot; 
But honorest this mine emptiness, for gage 
In tenure of undying heritage: 
Me fame according where a worth is not. 

Deluded worshipper! And yet the smell 
Of votive incense sunsetward ascending 
Hath waken'd in thy satyr of the weed 
Old premonitions of a god impending; 
Echoes of inspirations, in a screed 
Of heart-dawn and thy daily miracle! 



202 



THE SONNETS 



TO JANE, IN CRISIS 

Truly, a very trifling agony, 
A moment only of intenser dread; 
And then the pain that had beset thy bed 
Forever banish'd in a memory! 
Though yet my soul which horribly sat by. 
Mine eyes that saw thine eyes sightless and dead — 
t^^How can they bear the bitterness then bred 
Prophetic of the hour, our love must die? 
But love is nowise now sick unto death 
Nor vision shaken with the silly fear. 
For, sight to sight, thy sweet-reviving breath 
Returns with soul-light and a meaning clear 
Enshrined. While, bravely with a fresh heart-faith. 
We know that life hath never been more near. 



203 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

ON ONE LEARNING TO READ 

I 

Now that thy tongue hath deftly earn'd a speech 
Quaint, innocent, entrancing to the ear 
Of hearts for whom thy baby-lips endear 
Whatever wisdom they'd essay to teach; 
Now that the utter'd word is thine, in each 
Soul-circumstance, beyond the smile or tear; 
Behold, a mystery beyond compeer: 
The written word within thy vision-reach! 

Thou tiniest novice at the temple-porch 
So earnest of admission! Mayest thou find 
Within, no ritual of the chill and blind 
Nor yet the riot and the passion-scorch 
Of souls a-reeking! But, the veil behind, 
Thy vestal-mother and the still, white torch! 



204 



THE SONNETS 

ON ONE LEARNING TO READ 

II 

For as a mother open-arm'd and warm 

Yet all-illumining with calm advice 

(Unlike purveyors of a paradise!) 

Shall learning talisman from soul-alarm. 

Allow life-understanding without harm, 

Whilst leading thee, through years of fire or ice 

Alike, to bourn of passion-sacrifice 

By wealth and breadth and strength of spirit-charm. 

And, lo! with what self-sacrificial aim 

In abnegation of all faith-demand 

Men's wisdoms He about thee, gravely bland. 

For thine informing toward a truth and claim 

Which supersede them! — Be thy heart and hand 

Reverent of the glory whence we came. 



205 



POEMS DOMESTIC 

ON ONE LEARNING TO READ 

III 

And when, arriven in novel wisdom, thou — 
Of human record the fresh-risen star — 
Liftest, to whisper multitudes afar 
Thine insights universal; then as now 
May innocence of eye, the grave, bland brow 
Of him whose poet-making need not mar 
The magic and the peace of truths that are 
Declare thee and thy pieties avow. 

Ah, little son, beneath the portico 
Spell out thy simple secret, at the feet 
Of her who daily, hourly lessons sweet 
In sympathy to all who love and know 
Teacheth. And there thy father thou shalt greet 
Haply together as we come or go. 

206 



THE SONNETS 



RENASCENCE 



Ah! yesterday seem'd he no more a child, 
Half-manly-grown in outdoor-boyhood ways, 
A being too beyond the ingle-days 
For heed of care and comfort. Crib-exiled, 
By morning-sweetness of the world beguiled. 
He faced with eagerness of early gaze 
The six-year fascination of sun-maze; 
Nor guidance craved nor warning of the wild. 

But, now, by serious body's-hurt laid low 
(Sustain'd in innocent enterprise; the pain 
In bravery endured) he lieth — so 
Dependent and appealing! That the hour 
Of first-borne man-disaster bears again 
What awe-fiU'd raptures of a parent-power! 



207 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



READING ALOUD 

It may be only how a hero blue 

Horn-blowing calls the cattle from the corn; 

Or how upon a faery-fecund morn 

The magic-marvel of the beanstalk grew; 

Or any boyish epic fancy-true; 

Which he, in pride of talent lately-born 

And tactful solace to our age forlorn. 

With care explains and elocutions due. 

But there he sits upon the hearthside stool 
Already with power afresh to thrill the mind 
Of men and angels by the nurse-lore stale. 
For man and angel listen. And the pool 
Is troubled of our spirits, that childhood-kind 
New-make such wonder of a life-worn talc. 



208 



THE SONNETS 



AFTERMATH 

So, dear, the tiny gladsome guests are gone 

Who graced in childHness the pleasant feast 

Of boyhood-anniversal; last and least 

Departed; and the elfin revel done. 

And, where the pigmy twinkling candles shone, 

A little echoey scent of incense-ceased; 

A little laughter left of fairy priest 

His flock who bless'd upon the birthday-throne! 

So, dear, for thy soon-following festival 
More solemn service: he and thou and I, 
Humane-eterne; with but that friend, from all, 
Who most within the temple holily 
Museth; and most upon the cloudy sky 
Hath vision of the tone-truths coronal. 



209 



POEMS DOMESTIC 



ON ONE RETURNING FROM A MISSION 
OVERSEAS 

But better is it that the happy door 
Ope wide to her admittance at a touch; 
Then shut behind her, entering in such 
An holy homecoming: and nothing more. 
Nothing — save, in your joy, the danger-o'er; 
The pain for mission'd absence-over-much 
Forever ended; and the spirit-clutch 
Of soul to soul in love-remember'd lore! 

And I, who leave you to her coming-home, 
I carry nightward something of the gleam 
From out your waiting windows wide astream 
And vision of the hearth-fire warmth apart; 
Sharing the resurrection in her heart 
Who 'mid sea-shadows of death hath dared the 
foam. 



210 



THE SONNETS 

GOSPEL 

I 

Dear wife, that we are happy as our hope 
In daily mutual duty, joy of mind 
For just performance of an heart-divined 
Soul-common courtesy beyond the scope 
Of folk for whom no intercourse may ope 
The spirit-confidence of marriage-kind; 
That we are dwelling as our faith design'd 
And not as they who in the blindness grope 
Of lone unsympathies without or plan 
Or purport spirit-worthy: shall success 
Harden with pride our hearts whose high self- 
claim 
Baseth in love-allowance, or the stress 
Of inmost triumphing swerve pity's aim 
By largess to enhearten whom we can? 



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POEMS DOMESTIC 

GOSPEL 

II 

Nay; save our sympathies bore radiant fruit 
(Though evanescent haply) ; to the grief 
Of them in inward darkness respite brief 
As by assurance of the right at root 
Of all their dim unreason; if but mute 
We sat and shone not; of best joys a chief 
Were wanting from the beauty of belief, 
And selfish ease, beneath the veriest brute. 
Were ours in lieu of loyal harmony. 
And so in awed humility we dare 
Attempt the art-evangel of a song, 
The vivid bourgeon, on the doubtful air. 
Of our sweet, serious seeding — that erelong 
Some soul may eat thereof and may not die. 



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THE SONNETS 

GOSPEL 

III 

And if, of all in the world, such soul were he 

Our child who daily, marvel-manifold, 

Grows myriadwise in promise boyhood-bold 

Of vigorous achievement; if we be 

In virtue of this psalm of thee and me 

An inspiration unto joys untold 

And manhood-masteries by love ensoul'd 

In him our worshipp'd offspring — verily 

Then were the risk well-taken and the curse 

Of spirit-arrogance in splendor-boast 

Not ill to answer; nor the grief beneath 

Our joy by reason of earth's hopeless host 

Who sink, for all earth's sunshine, dark in death, 

Too heavy for the seraph of our verse! 



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POEMS DOMESTIC 



INSPIRATION 

How limitless upon the morning hour 
The brooding of a wisdom over thee. 
Who leadest with a patience lovingly 
The boyhood-spirit forth to book-won power; 
So passing daily down the infinite dower 
Of world-without-end human mastery! 
Dear heart, how half-divine the prophecy 
Of open'd mind unto the lisping knower! 
And, lo! the compensation; thou and I 
Age-proven and all-wanting — infinite 
Our unachievement! Yet in him our chance 
Of human betterment by soul-advance 
Beyond earth-understanding, clear and high, 
Gleameth as at the first: that there be light! 



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THE SONNETS 



THE GREAT CRUSADE 

Because, if late and still reluctantly. 
Our leaders have allow'd the nation's wrath 
Fierce-pent to flame in righteousness, a path 
Opens unto the feet unused of me 
Whose bourn exceedeth prophecy. And we 
With heart-acclaim accept the sacred bath 
Of fire and blood ; for service, duty hath 
Long, long demanded of our recreancy. 

The end we see not. But the way is known, 
The sword-borne covenant ; a freedom-worth 
Through world-obedience to the homeland cause. 
Thou, my home-keeper! 1, who sally forth, 
Salute thee in a strength nowise mine own 
Save as I steel me in thy holy laws. 



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POEMS DOMESTIC 



AVE ATQUE VALE 

Out of the bitter turmoil, to return 
To thee; and in the love-tide of the year! 
The farewell said to all the heart held dear; 
Hard wind and icy wave and death-thought stern 
Alone permitted of the soul's concern: 
Till sudden thy soft speech upon the ear. 
Thy sun-sweet presence vivifying near — 
Though heroes fall afar and cities burn! 

Ah, love, the unexampled miracle. 
The nature-resurrection unforeseen! 
Till now anew love's infinite farewell; 
Soul's endless dedication, nothing loth. 
In absolute offering: within us both 
An heart-of-service ultimate, serene! 



216 



THE SONNETS 



ARMISTICE 

Again the healing in thy garment-hem — 
As His of Nazareth! — The world-wide war 
Is ended; and hearth-rapture as of yore 
Renew'd unto the remnant-ash of them 
Who with their naked bodies sought to stem 
The molten deluge. Unto them no more 
The fiery sacrifice, who bled before 
Verdun, Ypres, Baghdad or Jerusalem! 

A victory universal and a peace 

Prevailing by the bravery of men 

In holiest wrath for every creed's crusade 

Against all-blasphemy! And I too cease 

My tiniest stint of sacrifice; again 

Rendering to thee the manhood thou hast made. 



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